IRS CANCELLED Contract with Email-Storage Firm Weeks After Lerner’s Computer Crash
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cancelled its longtime relationship with an email-storage contractor just weeks after ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s computer crashed and shortly before other IRS officials’ computers allegedly crashed.
The IRS signed a contract with Sonasoft, an email-archiving company based in San Jose, California, each year from 2005 to 2010. The company, which partners with Microsoft and counts The New York Times among its clients, claims in its company slogans that it provides “Email Archiving Done Right” and “Point-Click Recovery.” Sonasoft in 2009 tweeted, “If the IRS uses Sonasoft products to backup their servers why wouldn’t you choose them to protect your servers?”
Sonasoft was providing “automatic data processing” services for the IRS throughout the January 2009 to April 2011 period in which Lerner sent her missing emails.
But Sonasoft’s six-year business relationship with the IRS came to an abrupt end at the close of fiscal year 2011, as congressional investigators began looking into the IRS conservative targeting scandal and IRS employees’ computers started crashing left and right.
Sonasoft’s fiscal year 2011 contract with the IRS ended on August 31, 2011. Eight days later, the IRS officially closed out its relationship with Sonasoft in accordance with the federal government’s contract close-out guidelines, which require agencies to fully audit their contracts and to get back any money that wasn’t used by the contractor. Curiously, the IRS de-allocated 36 cents when it closed out its contract with Sonasoft on September 8, 2011.
Lois Lerner’s computer allegedly crashed in June 2011, just ten days after House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Dave Camp first wrote a letter asking if the IRS was engaging in targeting of nonprofit groups. Two months later, Sonasoft’s contract ended and the IRS gave its email-archiving contractor the boot....
Kim Strassel and the WSJ on the Lost IRS Emails
...A WSJ editorial this morning points out the remarkable timing of the IRS’s begrudging disclosure last Friday that evidence central to the case has been destroyed: more than a year after the investigation began and only when a deadline was impending in which the IRS commissioner would have to certify personally that the agency had produced to Congress all relevant communications. Were responsible agency officials determined to treat this as a high-priority investigation, to be carried on in good faith and with all deliberate speed? (There was no doubt about the seriousness of the scandal, as President Obama himself admitted—or seemed to be admitting—at the time.) Or did they instead stall and deflect until the very last moment? So un-forthcoming was the agency that, according to today’s Journal editorial, IRS staffers met with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) Monday and did not tell him that the external emails of six other IRS employees had gone missing too—he found that out only later in the week when he read a press release from the House side. ...
Lawmakers: IRS lost more emails in tea party probe
WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service has lost more emails connected to the tea party investigation, congressional investigators said Tuesday.
The IRS said last Friday it had lost an untold number of emails when Lois Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011. Lerner used to head the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status.
On Tuesday, two key lawmakers said the IRS has also lost emails from six additional IRS workers whose computers crashed. Among them was Nikole Flax, who was chief of staff to Lerner’s boss, then-deputy commissioner Steven Miller....
IRS ‘Lost’ Emails From Official That Met With Top Obama Assistant
...The IRS recently claimed that it lost emails from Nikole Flax, who served as chief of staff to former IRS commissioner Steven Miller. Flax was one of seven IRS employees including ex-official Lois Lerner whose emails to and from White House officials and other Obama administration agencies were purportedly deleted and could not be handed over to congressional investigators.
Flax held personal meetings with a top assistant to President Obama and also colluded with Lerner to prosecute conservative activists.
Flax made 31 visits to the White House between July 12, 2010 and May 8, 2013, according to White House visitor logs. Flax’s visits started in the early days of the IRS targeting program and ended just two days before the IRS scandal broke on May 10, 2013.
Flax met twice in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with deputy assistant to the president for health policy Jeanne Lambrew, on Oct. 5, 2012 and Jan. 15, 2013.
Who is Jeanne Lambrew?
As The Daily Caller reported, Lambrew exchanged confidential taxpayer information on conservative groups with IRS official Sarah Hall Ingram in 2012 as the White House tried to figure out how to deal with a lawsuit filed by a religious organization fighting Obamacare’s contraceptive mandate. Lambrew also hosted 155 of Ingram’s 165 White House visits....
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Free Universities And No Student Loan Debt Is Hurting Denmark's Economy
...But many, in both industry and politics, feel it's become a free lunch that's giving indigestion to Scandinavia's already weakest economy.
Too many pursue "fulfilment" and too few the science and engineering degrees needed in well-paid growth sectors critical for the nation's future, they say.
Typical is 23-year-old Ali Badreldin, who is enrolled at the Royal Danish Academy of Music to become a saxophone player. "Music was always part of my life growing up so it was a natural choice," he said.
His courses are free and he gets a monthly stipend of 5,839 DKK (782 euros, $1,074) in a system where class sizes are rarely limited.
The result has Denmark spending more proportionally on education than any other country in the OECD club of 34 advanced nations.
Yet biotech firms like Novozymes say they cannot find enough engineers.
Engineering opportunities have soared in recent years in Denmark, but its youth have shunned the sector, with only one-third the OECD average contemplating an engineering career amid top-heavy enrolment in arts and humanities programmes....
...They point to "Lazy Robert", or Robert Nielsen, an erstwhile student of social sciences, philosophy and Chinese, now 45, who shot to notoriety after proudly stating on TV that he prefers living off social benefits than taking a job he didn't find "meaningful"....
...But many, in both industry and politics, feel it's become a free lunch that's giving indigestion to Scandinavia's already weakest economy.
Too many pursue "fulfilment" and too few the science and engineering degrees needed in well-paid growth sectors critical for the nation's future, they say.
Typical is 23-year-old Ali Badreldin, who is enrolled at the Royal Danish Academy of Music to become a saxophone player. "Music was always part of my life growing up so it was a natural choice," he said.
His courses are free and he gets a monthly stipend of 5,839 DKK (782 euros, $1,074) in a system where class sizes are rarely limited.
The result has Denmark spending more proportionally on education than any other country in the OECD club of 34 advanced nations.
Yet biotech firms like Novozymes say they cannot find enough engineers.
Engineering opportunities have soared in recent years in Denmark, but its youth have shunned the sector, with only one-third the OECD average contemplating an engineering career amid top-heavy enrolment in arts and humanities programmes....
...They point to "Lazy Robert", or Robert Nielsen, an erstwhile student of social sciences, philosophy and Chinese, now 45, who shot to notoriety after proudly stating on TV that he prefers living off social benefits than taking a job he didn't find "meaningful"....
MOTHER ACCUSED OF FATALLY POISONING SON WITH SODIUM
...A young mother who documented her 5-year-old son's persistent illness on social media was arrested Tuesday, accused of fatally poisoning him with sodium.
...Investigators say Lacey Spears was desperate for attention and used her son as a tool to make it happen by publicly documenting his condition. ...
...Lacey documented her son's various health problems using a public blog. And five months ago, investigators became curious and looked into her son's death, and that's when they started gathering mountains of evidence. Finally, a grand jury granted the indictment. ...
...A young mother who documented her 5-year-old son's persistent illness on social media was arrested Tuesday, accused of fatally poisoning him with sodium.
...Investigators say Lacey Spears was desperate for attention and used her son as a tool to make it happen by publicly documenting his condition. ...
...Lacey documented her son's various health problems using a public blog. And five months ago, investigators became curious and looked into her son's death, and that's when they started gathering mountains of evidence. Finally, a grand jury granted the indictment. ...
AFTER CLIMATE CHANGE SPEECH, OBAMA JETS TO PALM SPRINGS FOR GOLF
President Barack Obama arrived in Palm Springs, California on Saturday via Air Force One to spend Father's Day playing golf. Hours earlier, he had lectured graduating students at University of California, Irvine, about the need to "do something" about climate change, mocking those who questioned that policy goal.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) encourages reducing unnecessary air travel to minimize carbon dioxide emissions. Golf courses are also frequent targets of environmentalists--especially in southern California, where a severe drought has placed a spotlight on golf courses' use of scarce water resources....
President Barack Obama arrived in Palm Springs, California on Saturday via Air Force One to spend Father's Day playing golf. Hours earlier, he had lectured graduating students at University of California, Irvine, about the need to "do something" about climate change, mocking those who questioned that policy goal.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) encourages reducing unnecessary air travel to minimize carbon dioxide emissions. Golf courses are also frequent targets of environmentalists--especially in southern California, where a severe drought has placed a spotlight on golf courses' use of scarce water resources....
Lois Lerner's Hard Drive "Crashed" Ten Days After House Ways & Means Chairman David Camp Made His First Inquiry About Targeting Conservatives
...As to Ms. Lerner's behavior, consider that House Ways & Means Chairman Dave Camp first sent a letter asking if the IRS was engaged in targeting in June, 2011. Ms. Lerner denied it. She engineered a plant in an audience at a tax conference in May 2013 to drop the bombshell news about targeting (maybe hoping nobody would notice?). She has subsequently asserted a Fifth Amendment right to silence in front of the only people actually investigating the affair, Congress. Now we learn that her hard drive supposedly defied modernity and suffered total annihilation about 10 days after the Camp letter arrived....
...As to Ms. Lerner's behavior, consider that House Ways & Means Chairman Dave Camp first sent a letter asking if the IRS was engaged in targeting in June, 2011. Ms. Lerner denied it. She engineered a plant in an audience at a tax conference in May 2013 to drop the bombshell news about targeting (maybe hoping nobody would notice?). She has subsequently asserted a Fifth Amendment right to silence in front of the only people actually investigating the affair, Congress. Now we learn that her hard drive supposedly defied modernity and suffered total annihilation about 10 days after the Camp letter arrived....
"We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for thirty or forty or fifty years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."
--Rudy Giuliani
--Rudy Giuliani
Sunday, June 15, 2014
David Brat Is Right
...It is, it seems, decidedly easier idiotically to repeat that “government is the only thing we all belong to,” or that “government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together” than to acknowledge that, whether one is advocating a small government that takes care of the basics or a Leviathan that seeks to meddle in the smallest recesses of the human heart, one is invoking Thomas Hobbes. George Washington almost certainly never said that “government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force,” nor did he describe the state as “a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” But these maxims, attributed to him, gained wide currency because, imprimatur or none, they contain a valuable truth. Brat’s words are the heir to this recognition. In his supposedly “unusual” essay, he asks whether “we trust institutions of the government to ensure justice”; suggests that “history teaches us” to worry about the scope of the state; and, channeling a sentiment that would be extraordinarily familiar to the Founding Fathers and in accord with the philosophies and historical examples that inspired them, mocks the arrogant notion that we now “live in particularly lucky and fortunate times where the State can be trusted to do minimal justice.” He observed, too, that however secure the principle that Americans may defend themselves against violence if attacked, they will nonetheless eventually have to abide by a judgment from the state. When Brat argues that “when push comes to shove, the State will win in a battle of wills,” he is confirming that violence is only legitimate when the state says that it is. That’s a monopoly.
There is nothing incoherent or sinister about this. On the contrary: That a potential member of Congress is so elegantly aware of the remarkable strength of the body that he is seeking to join is little short of refreshing. Also bracing was that Brat’s contention was cast in bipartisan — or, rather, nonpartisan — terms. First, he asked whether his audience was happy to trust the extraordinary power of the government to the temporary custody of the Right or Left. Then he suggested that anybody who “answered ‘no’ to either question” could well find themselves with “a major problem in the future.” In doing so, he joined a long line of forward-looking Americans who have, in Edmund Burke’s felicitous phrase, tended not to “judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance,” but have been disposed instead to “anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle.” The colonists, Burke espied, “augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.” So, too, the architects of the nation. It was evident in the late 18th century that despotism was a perennial prospect, and, as Brat hints, the horrors of the 20th century should have served only to amplify that trepidation. Where, pray, is the problem here?...
...If David Brat’s wholly inoffensive observations are enough to give a person the vapors, he might well look to reconsider the foundations of his philosophy. In certain cases — rape, murder, defense of the realm — the case for government force is an easy one to make. In others — the hosting of cowboy poetry festivals, the banning of smoking, the hyper-regulation of small businesses — it is downright farcical. Were I convinced that the state should be using its power to determine the optimum price of milk, I would probably recoil at the word “violence,” too. This, though, has no bearing on whether its use is pertinent. David Brat was correct: Governments of all sorts rely upon force and maintain a monopoly on fire, and thereby invite all of us to turn our skeptical eyes toward them. Let’s try not to crucify a man for looking on them without favor and telling all who would listen the acrid truth about what he has seen.
...It is, it seems, decidedly easier idiotically to repeat that “government is the only thing we all belong to,” or that “government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together” than to acknowledge that, whether one is advocating a small government that takes care of the basics or a Leviathan that seeks to meddle in the smallest recesses of the human heart, one is invoking Thomas Hobbes. George Washington almost certainly never said that “government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force,” nor did he describe the state as “a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” But these maxims, attributed to him, gained wide currency because, imprimatur or none, they contain a valuable truth. Brat’s words are the heir to this recognition. In his supposedly “unusual” essay, he asks whether “we trust institutions of the government to ensure justice”; suggests that “history teaches us” to worry about the scope of the state; and, channeling a sentiment that would be extraordinarily familiar to the Founding Fathers and in accord with the philosophies and historical examples that inspired them, mocks the arrogant notion that we now “live in particularly lucky and fortunate times where the State can be trusted to do minimal justice.” He observed, too, that however secure the principle that Americans may defend themselves against violence if attacked, they will nonetheless eventually have to abide by a judgment from the state. When Brat argues that “when push comes to shove, the State will win in a battle of wills,” he is confirming that violence is only legitimate when the state says that it is. That’s a monopoly.
There is nothing incoherent or sinister about this. On the contrary: That a potential member of Congress is so elegantly aware of the remarkable strength of the body that he is seeking to join is little short of refreshing. Also bracing was that Brat’s contention was cast in bipartisan — or, rather, nonpartisan — terms. First, he asked whether his audience was happy to trust the extraordinary power of the government to the temporary custody of the Right or Left. Then he suggested that anybody who “answered ‘no’ to either question” could well find themselves with “a major problem in the future.” In doing so, he joined a long line of forward-looking Americans who have, in Edmund Burke’s felicitous phrase, tended not to “judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance,” but have been disposed instead to “anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle.” The colonists, Burke espied, “augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.” So, too, the architects of the nation. It was evident in the late 18th century that despotism was a perennial prospect, and, as Brat hints, the horrors of the 20th century should have served only to amplify that trepidation. Where, pray, is the problem here?...
...If David Brat’s wholly inoffensive observations are enough to give a person the vapors, he might well look to reconsider the foundations of his philosophy. In certain cases — rape, murder, defense of the realm — the case for government force is an easy one to make. In others — the hosting of cowboy poetry festivals, the banning of smoking, the hyper-regulation of small businesses — it is downright farcical. Were I convinced that the state should be using its power to determine the optimum price of milk, I would probably recoil at the word “violence,” too. This, though, has no bearing on whether its use is pertinent. David Brat was correct: Governments of all sorts rely upon force and maintain a monopoly on fire, and thereby invite all of us to turn our skeptical eyes toward them. Let’s try not to crucify a man for looking on them without favor and telling all who would listen the acrid truth about what he has seen.
Operation Choke Point a harbinger of big-government activism to come?
...Justice Department targetsinclude industries as diverse as ammunition sales, coin dealers, payday loans, “racist materials,” etc. And, again, these are all legal businesses that haven’t been charged with breaking any laws — the Justice Department just doesn’t like them.
So what we have under “Operation Choke Point” is the government deciding it wants to put the squeeze on certain lines of (legal) business, for no other reason than that the Department of Justice doesn’t favor them. It seems almost like some sort of conspiracy to deprive people of their civil rights. …
Personally, I don’t think that regulators should be able to abuse their discretion — and this certainly looks abusive to me — in order to pressure banks to shut down the accounts of legal businesses. (As Sen. David Vitter, R-La., noted in March, the Justice Department has no statutory authority to do this). And while abortion clinics and environmental groups are probably safe under the Obama administration, if this sort of thing stands, they will be vulnerable to the same tactics if a different administration adopts this same thuggish approach toward the businesses that it dislikes. And why wouldn’t it, if the Justice Department gets away with this?
Congress, and the courts, and the press, need to bring the Justice Department to heel. And, in fact, I think that the officials involved should be named, shamed, and disciplined. Because what’s going on here doesn’t look much like justice at all...
...Justice Department targetsinclude industries as diverse as ammunition sales, coin dealers, payday loans, “racist materials,” etc. And, again, these are all legal businesses that haven’t been charged with breaking any laws — the Justice Department just doesn’t like them.
So what we have under “Operation Choke Point” is the government deciding it wants to put the squeeze on certain lines of (legal) business, for no other reason than that the Department of Justice doesn’t favor them. It seems almost like some sort of conspiracy to deprive people of their civil rights. …
Personally, I don’t think that regulators should be able to abuse their discretion — and this certainly looks abusive to me — in order to pressure banks to shut down the accounts of legal businesses. (As Sen. David Vitter, R-La., noted in March, the Justice Department has no statutory authority to do this). And while abortion clinics and environmental groups are probably safe under the Obama administration, if this sort of thing stands, they will be vulnerable to the same tactics if a different administration adopts this same thuggish approach toward the businesses that it dislikes. And why wouldn’t it, if the Justice Department gets away with this?
Congress, and the courts, and the press, need to bring the Justice Department to heel. And, in fact, I think that the officials involved should be named, shamed, and disciplined. Because what’s going on here doesn’t look much like justice at all...
The joy of tax: why payment should be a pleasure
I’m talking “tax”.
It is time to rehabilitate the word; indeed the notion. In doing so, we must learn to acknowledge- nay embrace- its innate goodness, decency and beauty. Of paying it, sharing in its bounty. Indeed, its infinite erotic potential.
The days of tax-shaming must come to an end.
...Time and time again the people step up to support bold progressive change - the Gonski education reforms, the NBN, a National Disability Insurance Scheme. At the same time, they reject the idea that they should pay more tax to do so. Economists like to borrow from psychologists who call this “cognitive dissonance”....
Liberal Austin homeowners surprised to find they have to pay all the taxes they voted for
...“I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.
“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”...
I’m talking “tax”.
It is time to rehabilitate the word; indeed the notion. In doing so, we must learn to acknowledge- nay embrace- its innate goodness, decency and beauty. Of paying it, sharing in its bounty. Indeed, its infinite erotic potential.
The days of tax-shaming must come to an end.
...Time and time again the people step up to support bold progressive change - the Gonski education reforms, the NBN, a National Disability Insurance Scheme. At the same time, they reject the idea that they should pay more tax to do so. Economists like to borrow from psychologists who call this “cognitive dissonance”....
Liberal Austin homeowners surprised to find they have to pay all the taxes they voted for
...“I’m at the breaking point,” said Gretchen Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8,500 this year.
“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”...
A Gentlemen’s Guide To Rape Culture
...If you are a man, you are part of rape culture. I know … that sounds rough. You’re not a rapist, necessarily. But you do perpetuate the attitudes and behaviors commonly referred to as rape culture....
...Here’s a bullet-point list of examples of rape culture.
· Inflating false rape report statistics
· Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history
· Defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive...
Good grades, good home gets college student profiled as rapist, claims lawsuit
..."[John Doe] fits the profile of other rapists on campus in that he had a high GPA in high school, was his class valedictorian, was on [a sports] team, and was from a good family," the suit quotes Occidental Sociology Prof. Danielle Dirks, who co-founded the school's Sexual Assault Coalition, telling the woman, who was initially reluctant to accuse the man of rape.
Earlier this year, the White House issued a report on sexual assaults on college campuses and called on schools to become more vigilant about the issue. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) estimates that a college with 10,000 students could experience as many as 350 rapes per year, while the White House Council on Women and Girls — co-authors of the White House report — estimates nearly 1-in-5 women will be sexually assaulted during her time in college.
But the fact that campus rape is a legitimate social problem does not mean John Doe is guilty, according to Shibley. He said Occidental misapplied its own sexual misconduct policy, which was implemented last August, a month before the university settled with at least 10 of 37 current and former students who alleged that the school repeatedly mishandled sexual assault accusations.
The women, all of whom were represented by high-profile women's rights attorney Gloria Allred, were among those who alleged in a federal civil rights complaint that Occidental deliberately discouraged victims from reporting sexual assaults, misled students about their rights, retaliated against whistle-blowers and doled out minor punishments to assailants who in some cases allegedly struck again.
Shibley, meanwhile, said an external adjudicator hired by the school to investigate the September 2013 incident concluded that the female student did consent to sex, but that that consent was invalid since she was intoxicated.
Furthermore, text messages between the two, including one in which the woman asked whether John Doe had a condom, should be considered as a “smoking gun” in the case, Shibley said.
“We’re responsible for the decisions we make while we’re drunk, just like someone who drinks and decides to get behind the wheel of a car,” he said. “She asked if he had a condom; she also told one of her friends that she was going to have sex as well. It seems pretty clear she knew what was going on.”...
...If you are a man, you are part of rape culture. I know … that sounds rough. You’re not a rapist, necessarily. But you do perpetuate the attitudes and behaviors commonly referred to as rape culture....
...Here’s a bullet-point list of examples of rape culture.
· Inflating false rape report statistics
· Publicly scrutinizing a victim’s dress, mental state, motives, and history
· Defining “manhood” as dominant and sexually aggressive...
Good grades, good home gets college student profiled as rapist, claims lawsuit
..."[John Doe] fits the profile of other rapists on campus in that he had a high GPA in high school, was his class valedictorian, was on [a sports] team, and was from a good family," the suit quotes Occidental Sociology Prof. Danielle Dirks, who co-founded the school's Sexual Assault Coalition, telling the woman, who was initially reluctant to accuse the man of rape.
Earlier this year, the White House issued a report on sexual assaults on college campuses and called on schools to become more vigilant about the issue. The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) estimates that a college with 10,000 students could experience as many as 350 rapes per year, while the White House Council on Women and Girls — co-authors of the White House report — estimates nearly 1-in-5 women will be sexually assaulted during her time in college.
But the fact that campus rape is a legitimate social problem does not mean John Doe is guilty, according to Shibley. He said Occidental misapplied its own sexual misconduct policy, which was implemented last August, a month before the university settled with at least 10 of 37 current and former students who alleged that the school repeatedly mishandled sexual assault accusations.
The women, all of whom were represented by high-profile women's rights attorney Gloria Allred, were among those who alleged in a federal civil rights complaint that Occidental deliberately discouraged victims from reporting sexual assaults, misled students about their rights, retaliated against whistle-blowers and doled out minor punishments to assailants who in some cases allegedly struck again.
Shibley, meanwhile, said an external adjudicator hired by the school to investigate the September 2013 incident concluded that the female student did consent to sex, but that that consent was invalid since she was intoxicated.
Furthermore, text messages between the two, including one in which the woman asked whether John Doe had a condom, should be considered as a “smoking gun” in the case, Shibley said.
“We’re responsible for the decisions we make while we’re drunk, just like someone who drinks and decides to get behind the wheel of a car,” he said. “She asked if he had a condom; she also told one of her friends that she was going to have sex as well. It seems pretty clear she knew what was going on.”...
After Looting $429 Million & More Gold Bullion From Mosul Central Bank, ISIS Is Now "The Richest Terror Force In the World"
4 Things You Need to Know About the Collapse of Iraq
Veterans watch as Iraq teeters on the brink
Iraqi Kurds seize Kirkuk as army flees
As militants advance in Iraq, U.S. Embassy in Baghdad readies evacuation
4 Things You Need to Know About the Collapse of Iraq
Veterans watch as Iraq teeters on the brink
Iraqi Kurds seize Kirkuk as army flees
As militants advance in Iraq, U.S. Embassy in Baghdad readies evacuation
Obama acts to protect workers from ObamaCare.
...The word that got our attention, though, is dump. It appears in the headline, too: "I.R.S. Bars Employers From Dumping Workers Into Health Exchanges." If the New York Times were our only source of news, we'd be very confused right now. (Well, OK, we'd be very confused almost always.) For months the Times has been touting the quality of ObamaCare policies, scoffing at those who liked their previous plans and were victimized by President Obama's fraudulent promise that they could keep them.
Now all of a sudden the exchanges are a garbage dump? Or is it that the exchanges are a pristine wilderness into which workers are the garbage being dumped?
The Times quotes Obama at a February press conference: "I don't think that an employer-based system is going to be, or should be, replaced anytime soon," he said when a reporter asked "whether over the long term you see a future where health insurance is less tied to the workplace."
You can see why the president would take that position. If employers start dropping medical benefits, the number of people directly victimized by the you-can-keep-your-plan fraud would multiply, and with it Obama and the Democrats' political problems. Thus the administration is in the ironic position of writing regulations to make sure its "comprehensive reform" isn't too comprehensive....
VA Spending Per Patient Exploded Amid Deadly Delays
...The VA's budget has been exploding, even as the number of veterans steadily declines. From 2000 to 2013, outlays nearly tripled, while the population of veterans declined by 4.3 million.
Medical care spending — which consumes about 40% of the VA's budget — has climbed 193% over those years, while the number of patients served by the VA each year went up just 68%, according to data from the VA.
From 2008 to 2012 alone, per-patient spending at the VA climbed 27%. To put that in perspective, per capita health spending nationwide rose just 13% during those years....
Exclusive: Texas VA Run Like a ‘Crime Syndicate,’ Whistleblower Says
...Emails and VA memos obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast provide what is among the most comprehensive accounts yet of how high-level VA hospital employees conspired to game the system. It shows not only how they manipulated hospital wait lists but why—to cover up the weeks and months veterans spent waiting for needed medical care. If those lag times had been revealed, it would have threatened the executives’ bonus pay.
What’s worse, the documents show the wrongdoing going unpunished for years, even after it was repeatedly reported to local and national VA authorities. That indicates a new troubling angle to the VA scandal: that the much touted investigations may be incapable of finding violations that are hiding in plain sight.
“For lack of a better term, you’ve got an organized crime syndicate,” a whistleblower who works in the Texas VA told The Daily Beast. “People up on top are suddenly afraid they may actually be prosecuted and they’re pressuring the little guys down below to cover it all up.”
“I see it in the executives’ eyes,” the whistleblower added. “They are worried.”...
Don’t Nationalize the VA’s Failures
...“Don’t sweat it,” The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber wrote rather bluntly in January, for Obamacare’s “going to get us to a single-payer system before long.” Leading progressive lights Ezra Klein and Paul Krugman certainly hope so — the former having praised the VA as one of “the best health-care systems in the world,” the latter having not only endorsed the principle of a government takeover of the health sector but having advocated the nationalization of hospitals, too. The VA, Krugman claimed in 2011, is “an integrated system, which provides health care as well as paying for it.” As a result, he contended, “it’s free from the perverse incentives created when doctors and hospitals profit from expensive tests and procedures, whether or not those procedures actually make medical sense.”
On paper, this all sounds rather nice, I suppose. But, having lived for 26 years under such a system, I cannot say that I share Krugman’s enthusiasm. Explaining the nature of the new National Health Service in the late 1940s, the British socialist Aneurin Bevan told reporters that “if a bedpan dropped in a hospital corridor, the reverberations should echo in Whitehall.” (“Whitehall” is the part of London in which the national government is located.) Bevan got his way — and how. In England nowadays, when bad things happen to patients, we do not blame hospitals, doctors, and drug companies but politicians and their appointees. Those who follow Parliament are thus treated to the absurd spectacle of the prime minister being asked to comment on individual medical cases in far-flung corners of the nation. This he seems to have accepted as his role. Never does he say in response, “Why am I being asked about this?” Never does he ask whether it might be better if the state got out of the hospital business. Instead, in each and every instance, he takes responsibility and promises to look into it.
Does he do so? Rarely. Because mistakes in delivering health care are catastrophic for those seeking reelection or trying to push an agenda, politicians in Britain spend the vast majority of their time worrying about perceived rather than actual improvement. Government, by definition, has no competition, which means that those who staff it can lie and spin and cover up mistakes not just with impunity but with the full force of the state at their back. Thus do results become less important than statistics, reforms less important than spending, and patients less important than careers....
...All of which is to say that this is not only a question of what government does to health care but of what health care does to government. As Patrick Brennan noted yesterday, the sorts of problems that we are seeing at the VA — “gaming statistics, secret waiting lists, long wait times for serious procedures” — “seem to be endemic to single-payer health systems and especially fully socialized ones (as in ones where the government employs the doctors and runs the hospitals, too, like the VA, Britain’s, and Spain’s).” In short: Governments can’t run health-care systems efficiently, which irritates people, which leads to governments lying about health care. It’s a mess...
VA Spending Per Patient Exploded Amid Deadly Delays
...The VA's budget has been exploding, even as the number of veterans steadily declines. From 2000 to 2013, outlays nearly tripled, while the population of veterans declined by 4.3 million.
Medical care spending — which consumes about 40% of the VA's budget — has climbed 193% over those years, while the number of patients served by the VA each year went up just 68%, according to data from the VA.
From 2008 to 2012 alone, per-patient spending at the VA climbed 27%. To put that in perspective, per capita health spending nationwide rose just 13% during those years....
...The word that got our attention, though, is dump. It appears in the headline, too: "I.R.S. Bars Employers From Dumping Workers Into Health Exchanges." If the New York Times were our only source of news, we'd be very confused right now. (Well, OK, we'd be very confused almost always.) For months the Times has been touting the quality of ObamaCare policies, scoffing at those who liked their previous plans and were victimized by President Obama's fraudulent promise that they could keep them.
Now all of a sudden the exchanges are a garbage dump? Or is it that the exchanges are a pristine wilderness into which workers are the garbage being dumped?
The Times quotes Obama at a February press conference: "I don't think that an employer-based system is going to be, or should be, replaced anytime soon," he said when a reporter asked "whether over the long term you see a future where health insurance is less tied to the workplace."
You can see why the president would take that position. If employers start dropping medical benefits, the number of people directly victimized by the you-can-keep-your-plan fraud would multiply, and with it Obama and the Democrats' political problems. Thus the administration is in the ironic position of writing regulations to make sure its "comprehensive reform" isn't too comprehensive....
VA Spending Per Patient Exploded Amid Deadly Delays
...The VA's budget has been exploding, even as the number of veterans steadily declines. From 2000 to 2013, outlays nearly tripled, while the population of veterans declined by 4.3 million.
Medical care spending — which consumes about 40% of the VA's budget — has climbed 193% over those years, while the number of patients served by the VA each year went up just 68%, according to data from the VA.
From 2008 to 2012 alone, per-patient spending at the VA climbed 27%. To put that in perspective, per capita health spending nationwide rose just 13% during those years....
Exclusive: Texas VA Run Like a ‘Crime Syndicate,’ Whistleblower Says
...Emails and VA memos obtained exclusively by The Daily Beast provide what is among the most comprehensive accounts yet of how high-level VA hospital employees conspired to game the system. It shows not only how they manipulated hospital wait lists but why—to cover up the weeks and months veterans spent waiting for needed medical care. If those lag times had been revealed, it would have threatened the executives’ bonus pay.
What’s worse, the documents show the wrongdoing going unpunished for years, even after it was repeatedly reported to local and national VA authorities. That indicates a new troubling angle to the VA scandal: that the much touted investigations may be incapable of finding violations that are hiding in plain sight.
“For lack of a better term, you’ve got an organized crime syndicate,” a whistleblower who works in the Texas VA told The Daily Beast. “People up on top are suddenly afraid they may actually be prosecuted and they’re pressuring the little guys down below to cover it all up.”
“I see it in the executives’ eyes,” the whistleblower added. “They are worried.”...
Don’t Nationalize the VA’s Failures
...“Don’t sweat it,” The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber wrote rather bluntly in January, for Obamacare’s “going to get us to a single-payer system before long.” Leading progressive lights Ezra Klein and Paul Krugman certainly hope so — the former having praised the VA as one of “the best health-care systems in the world,” the latter having not only endorsed the principle of a government takeover of the health sector but having advocated the nationalization of hospitals, too. The VA, Krugman claimed in 2011, is “an integrated system, which provides health care as well as paying for it.” As a result, he contended, “it’s free from the perverse incentives created when doctors and hospitals profit from expensive tests and procedures, whether or not those procedures actually make medical sense.”
On paper, this all sounds rather nice, I suppose. But, having lived for 26 years under such a system, I cannot say that I share Krugman’s enthusiasm. Explaining the nature of the new National Health Service in the late 1940s, the British socialist Aneurin Bevan told reporters that “if a bedpan dropped in a hospital corridor, the reverberations should echo in Whitehall.” (“Whitehall” is the part of London in which the national government is located.) Bevan got his way — and how. In England nowadays, when bad things happen to patients, we do not blame hospitals, doctors, and drug companies but politicians and their appointees. Those who follow Parliament are thus treated to the absurd spectacle of the prime minister being asked to comment on individual medical cases in far-flung corners of the nation. This he seems to have accepted as his role. Never does he say in response, “Why am I being asked about this?” Never does he ask whether it might be better if the state got out of the hospital business. Instead, in each and every instance, he takes responsibility and promises to look into it.
Does he do so? Rarely. Because mistakes in delivering health care are catastrophic for those seeking reelection or trying to push an agenda, politicians in Britain spend the vast majority of their time worrying about perceived rather than actual improvement. Government, by definition, has no competition, which means that those who staff it can lie and spin and cover up mistakes not just with impunity but with the full force of the state at their back. Thus do results become less important than statistics, reforms less important than spending, and patients less important than careers....
...All of which is to say that this is not only a question of what government does to health care but of what health care does to government. As Patrick Brennan noted yesterday, the sorts of problems that we are seeing at the VA — “gaming statistics, secret waiting lists, long wait times for serious procedures” — “seem to be endemic to single-payer health systems and especially fully socialized ones (as in ones where the government employs the doctors and runs the hospitals, too, like the VA, Britain’s, and Spain’s).” In short: Governments can’t run health-care systems efficiently, which irritates people, which leads to governments lying about health care. It’s a mess...
VA Spending Per Patient Exploded Amid Deadly Delays
...The VA's budget has been exploding, even as the number of veterans steadily declines. From 2000 to 2013, outlays nearly tripled, while the population of veterans declined by 4.3 million.
Medical care spending — which consumes about 40% of the VA's budget — has climbed 193% over those years, while the number of patients served by the VA each year went up just 68%, according to data from the VA.
From 2008 to 2012 alone, per-patient spending at the VA climbed 27%. To put that in perspective, per capita health spending nationwide rose just 13% during those years....
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