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Thursday, September 21, 2017
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
VA Uses New Rules Under ‘VA Accountability Act’ to Fire Executive for Second Time
Via Billy
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials fired a former director of its Washington, D.C. medical center for the second time this year after Congress enacted new authorities.
The VA announced in a statement Wednesday that Hawkins had been terminated for a second time, the Washington Times reported. Brian Hawkins was fired from his executive position in July, but reinstated by the Merit Systems Protection Board. The department initially took steps to fire the director because the VA center run by Hawkins was plagued by supply problems and unsanitary conditions stemming from years of mismanagement. Hawkins, however, appealed the ruling by using federal employment laws. When he was reinstated by the protection board, VA Secretary David Shulkin moved him to an administrative position outside of patient care.
"No judge who has never run a hospital and never cared for our nation’s veterans will force me to put an employee back in a position when he allowed the facility to pose potential safety risks to our Veterans," Shulkin said at the time.
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) officials fired a former director of its Washington, D.C. medical center for the second time this year after Congress enacted new authorities.
The VA announced in a statement Wednesday that Hawkins had been terminated for a second time, the Washington Times reported. Brian Hawkins was fired from his executive position in July, but reinstated by the Merit Systems Protection Board. The department initially took steps to fire the director because the VA center run by Hawkins was plagued by supply problems and unsanitary conditions stemming from years of mismanagement. Hawkins, however, appealed the ruling by using federal employment laws. When he was reinstated by the protection board, VA Secretary David Shulkin moved him to an administrative position outside of patient care.
"No judge who has never run a hospital and never cared for our nation’s veterans will force me to put an employee back in a position when he allowed the facility to pose potential safety risks to our Veterans," Shulkin said at the time.
More @ The Washington Free Beacon
An Open Letter to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe
Via Jeffery
I was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in Ohio. I have taught Political Science at the collegiate level in Cincinnati, been published in The Wall Street Journal and am in my 12th year of research for a forthcoming book on Columbine.
For the past seven years I have made Rockbridge County, Virginia, my home.
The one and only reason I live in Lexington, Virginia is, because it is the final resting place of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson. Their lives, character, faith, integrity, honor and testimony shone so brightly a century and a half after their decease, that there is no other place on the Earth I want to be, but where they lived and served.
There is something deeply and morally wrong with anyone, who objects to these two great Virginians---great Americans being honored by the native State, for which they gave their lives, limbs and blood in selfless patriotic service.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower kept Lee’s portrait in his executive office, while president. Churchill extolled him as the greatest American. Ulysses S. Grant threatened to resign from the U.S. Army, if Lee were tried for treason.
The statue that marks the grave of “Stonewall” Jackson was paid for not only by the veterans, who served under him, but by financial contributions from former slaves, whom he had taught to read in violation of Virginia law.
When a Lexington local assailed Jackson for breaking the law to “teach those people”, Jackson uncharacteristically lost his temper and shouted, “If you were a Christian you would not say so!
After the war, it was Lee who broke social convention at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, by kneeling beside a former slave, who had mortified the White congregation by kneeling at the altar.
Asked afterward by a bigot why a man like himself would kneel beside a former slave, Lee simply chastised him, “The ground is always level at the foot of the cross.
The anniversary of the deaths of Lee and of Jackson were long commemorated in this Commonwealth by veterans of the North, who were often the honored keynote speakers invited to praise the virtues of their once-foes.
Every monument to a Confederate Virginian is a war memorial to an American veteran. It has been the mark of manhood and civility and longstanding American tradition to leave politics out of the way we honor our veterans. They fought the battles; we did not. They shed the blood; we did not.
They reconciled with their enemies; we did not. End of subject. It is not for children born a hundred and fifty years later to re-adjudicate the past and expose to double jeopardy men their own contemporaries exonerated.
It is the height of arrogance to suppose that you know more about these men and their times than their even contemporaries. The command of God remains, “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”
It is to God you will assuredly answer for its violation.
If you find it impossible to respect your elders, attempt at least to revere your betters.
The destruction of Virginia’s monuments to her war dead is sacrilege and those, who urge and execute it, are nothing more than cemetery vandals. There is no honor in this course of wanton destruction and, morally, you equate yourself with ISIS, which shares your contempt for actual culture, something you both so manifestly lack. It is more than history, more than art.
No matter. No one will remember you in any 150 years. Nothing you do can make anything like the mark these great Virginians made on history’s ledger. Just being you another day is your own punishment and yet you still face God for what you propose to do as well. Something is deeply, horribly wrong with your soul, Sir. And you know it. So does all Virginia.
I have strived to be civil, but you do not make it easy. Smearing reputations, slandering saints and tearing down what better men raised has zero to do with love, unity, tolerance, acceptance, diversity and coexistence. It’s just the usual political spoils game, playing one race/class/group against another to score a win at any cost. The mean, petty loathing of Virginia’s first string heroes outs you as a raging hypocrite just as you were trying to pass for intelligent. What a piece of work.
Just leave the statues, graves, monuments and memorials right where the grown-ups put them, Terry. Just fool around doing nothing, you know, like back at Georgetown. Easy.
That’s all I ask. And about the most anybody expects of you. Aren’t you tired yet of just being the same old failure and lurching from bungled debacle to bungled debacle?
Why not shock the world: open a book, educate yourself and do something less horrible than usual. Resign, even, and leave Virginians to govern Virginia. What a concept.
Shouldn’t you be ruining Syracuse instead of Richmond?
With all due respect,
Sherwin W. Dillard
I was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in Ohio. I have taught Political Science at the collegiate level in Cincinnati, been published in The Wall Street Journal and am in my 12th year of research for a forthcoming book on Columbine.
For the past seven years I have made Rockbridge County, Virginia, my home.
The one and only reason I live in Lexington, Virginia is, because it is the final resting place of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson. Their lives, character, faith, integrity, honor and testimony shone so brightly a century and a half after their decease, that there is no other place on the Earth I want to be, but where they lived and served.
There is something deeply and morally wrong with anyone, who objects to these two great Virginians---great Americans being honored by the native State, for which they gave their lives, limbs and blood in selfless patriotic service.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower kept Lee’s portrait in his executive office, while president. Churchill extolled him as the greatest American. Ulysses S. Grant threatened to resign from the U.S. Army, if Lee were tried for treason.
The statue that marks the grave of “Stonewall” Jackson was paid for not only by the veterans, who served under him, but by financial contributions from former slaves, whom he had taught to read in violation of Virginia law.
When a Lexington local assailed Jackson for breaking the law to “teach those people”, Jackson uncharacteristically lost his temper and shouted, “If you were a Christian you would not say so!
After the war, it was Lee who broke social convention at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, by kneeling beside a former slave, who had mortified the White congregation by kneeling at the altar.
Asked afterward by a bigot why a man like himself would kneel beside a former slave, Lee simply chastised him, “The ground is always level at the foot of the cross.
The anniversary of the deaths of Lee and of Jackson were long commemorated in this Commonwealth by veterans of the North, who were often the honored keynote speakers invited to praise the virtues of their once-foes.
Every monument to a Confederate Virginian is a war memorial to an American veteran. It has been the mark of manhood and civility and longstanding American tradition to leave politics out of the way we honor our veterans. They fought the battles; we did not. They shed the blood; we did not.
They reconciled with their enemies; we did not. End of subject. It is not for children born a hundred and fifty years later to re-adjudicate the past and expose to double jeopardy men their own contemporaries exonerated.
It is the height of arrogance to suppose that you know more about these men and their times than their even contemporaries. The command of God remains, “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”
It is to God you will assuredly answer for its violation.
If you find it impossible to respect your elders, attempt at least to revere your betters.
The destruction of Virginia’s monuments to her war dead is sacrilege and those, who urge and execute it, are nothing more than cemetery vandals. There is no honor in this course of wanton destruction and, morally, you equate yourself with ISIS, which shares your contempt for actual culture, something you both so manifestly lack. It is more than history, more than art.
No matter. No one will remember you in any 150 years. Nothing you do can make anything like the mark these great Virginians made on history’s ledger. Just being you another day is your own punishment and yet you still face God for what you propose to do as well. Something is deeply, horribly wrong with your soul, Sir. And you know it. So does all Virginia.
I have strived to be civil, but you do not make it easy. Smearing reputations, slandering saints and tearing down what better men raised has zero to do with love, unity, tolerance, acceptance, diversity and coexistence. It’s just the usual political spoils game, playing one race/class/group against another to score a win at any cost. The mean, petty loathing of Virginia’s first string heroes outs you as a raging hypocrite just as you were trying to pass for intelligent. What a piece of work.
Just leave the statues, graves, monuments and memorials right where the grown-ups put them, Terry. Just fool around doing nothing, you know, like back at Georgetown. Easy.
That’s all I ask. And about the most anybody expects of you. Aren’t you tired yet of just being the same old failure and lurching from bungled debacle to bungled debacle?
Why not shock the world: open a book, educate yourself and do something less horrible than usual. Resign, even, and leave Virginians to govern Virginia. What a concept.
Shouldn’t you be ruining Syracuse instead of Richmond?
With all due respect,
Sherwin W. Dillard
James O’Keefe Teases ‘Biggest Ever Media Investigation’ — Muses ‘People Will Be Fired’
Via Billy
In a video announcement released on Monday, Project Veritas founder and guerrilla journalist James O’Keefe warned his organization is currently operating one of the biggest ever investigations into the mainstream media’s ‘holy grail,’ promising media people will likely lose their jobs over the imminent exposé.
In a video announcement released on Monday, Project Veritas founder and guerrilla journalist James O’Keefe warned his organization is currently operating one of the biggest ever investigations into the mainstream media’s ‘holy grail,’ promising media people will likely lose their jobs over the imminent exposé.
More with video @ The Gateway Pundit
Tillerson, Haley Clash Over Iran Nuclear Deal
Via Billy
In a sign of the ongoing internal dissent over ending the landmark nuclear agreement with Iran, multiple sources told the Washington Free Beacon
that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and United Nations Ambassador
Nikki Haley have been at odds over the deal, with Trump's U.N.
ambassador privately expressing dismay with Tillerson over his continued
efforts to preserve the nuclear agreement.
Tillerson and Haley held a private powwow Wednesday with international leaders regarding the future of the nuclear deal, a sign of Haley's vital role in the Trump administration's key foreign policy issue.
The meeting is likely to underscore mounting tensions between Haley and Tillerson on the issue, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, who told the Free Beacon that Haley views Tillerson's efforts to preserve the deal as anathema to Trump's own policy agenda.
The division is one of several that Tillerson has sparked within the administration, particularly in the West Wing, where the secretary of state has been described as in "open war" with Trump on a series of major foreign policy issues, including Iran and the Israel-Palestinian impasse.
UN ambassador views Tillerson effort to preserve nuke deal as undermining Trump
Tillerson and Haley held a private powwow Wednesday with international leaders regarding the future of the nuclear deal, a sign of Haley's vital role in the Trump administration's key foreign policy issue.
The meeting is likely to underscore mounting tensions between Haley and Tillerson on the issue, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, who told the Free Beacon that Haley views Tillerson's efforts to preserve the deal as anathema to Trump's own policy agenda.
The division is one of several that Tillerson has sparked within the administration, particularly in the West Wing, where the secretary of state has been described as in "open war" with Trump on a series of major foreign policy issues, including Iran and the Israel-Palestinian impasse.
More @ The Washington Free Beacon
The Historical Folly of “Nothing but Race.”
At the base of most of the ongoing political debates currently raging in the United Sates there are always, it seems, deeper questions, more philosophical and more historical contexts that need to be examined—what I would call “legacy issues.”
Oftentimes assumptions are made or are disseminated by many self-proclaimed defenders of our traditions—by those “conservative apologists”—that bear little relationship to historical reality, and, in fact, fatally weaken or blur our understanding of it.
Many of these assumptions relate specifically to the conscious creation by the present (neo) conservative movement of a utilizable past that both justifies their present practice and fends off criticism from the hard Left that somehow, because they claim to be “conservative” and presumably defenders of the Constitution and inherited traditions of the country, they partake in forms of “racism,” as well as sexism, homophobia, and white supremacy.
More @ The Abbeville Institute
Far-right party shakes up German politics
Gauland provoked outrage for saying at another event that Germans should no longer be reproached with the Nazi past and they should take pride in what their soldiers achieved during the World Wars.
The first far-right party set to enter Germany's parliament for more than a half a century says it will press for Chancellor Angela Merkel to be "severely punished" for opening the door to refugees and migrants.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has also called for Germany's immigration minister to be "disposed of" in Turkey where her parents come from, could become the third largest party with up to 12 per cent of the vote on September 24, polls show.
More @ Yahoo
The Welfare State's Legacy By Walter E. Williams
Via Billy
That the problems of today’s black Americans are a result of a legacy of slavery, racial discrimination and poverty has achieved an axiomatic status, thought to be self-evident and beyond question. This is what academics and the civil rights establishment have taught. But as with so much of what’s claimed by leftists, there is little evidence to support it.
The No. 1 problem among blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure. Children from fatherless homes are likelier to drop out of high school, die by suicide, have behavioral disorders, join gangs, commit crimes and end up in prison. They are also likelier to live in poverty-stricken households. But is the weak black family a legacy of slavery? In 1960, just 22 percent of black children were raised in single-parent families. Fifty years later, more than 70 percent of black children were raised in single-parent families. Here’s my question: Was the increase in single-parent black families after 1960 a legacy of slavery, or might it be a legacy of the welfare state ushered in by the War on Poverty?
That the problems of today’s black Americans are a result of a legacy of slavery, racial discrimination and poverty has achieved an axiomatic status, thought to be self-evident and beyond question. This is what academics and the civil rights establishment have taught. But as with so much of what’s claimed by leftists, there is little evidence to support it.
The No. 1 problem among blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure. Children from fatherless homes are likelier to drop out of high school, die by suicide, have behavioral disorders, join gangs, commit crimes and end up in prison. They are also likelier to live in poverty-stricken households. But is the weak black family a legacy of slavery? In 1960, just 22 percent of black children were raised in single-parent families. Fifty years later, more than 70 percent of black children were raised in single-parent families. Here’s my question: Was the increase in single-parent black families after 1960 a legacy of slavery, or might it be a legacy of the welfare state ushered in by the War on Poverty?
More @ LRC
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