RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-va-continues-a-centuries-long-history-of-scandal-1530052942

When Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin was ousted earlier this year, most of Washington wrote it off as another result of President Trump’s chaotic management style. Perhaps, but the change also reflects the state of pandemonium long associated with the VA. Caring for veterans has never been a straightforward task in the U.S.

Since its elevation to a cabinet-level department in 1989, the VA has shed secretaries faster than the Praetorian Guard knocked off Roman emperors. Seven of its nine confirmed secretaries have resigned out of frustration or over scandal. The secretary’s employment background hasn’t made a difference. Whether he came from the military, medicine, the corporate world or Congress, the result has largely been the same: Exit stage right, with little applause from veteran-service organizations or the broader public.

Scandals plagued veteran affairs before an official agency even existed. Fraud, overspending and waste nearly ended the relatively modest veterans pension program in 1820. The same trio of ills showed up in post-Civil War veterans programs. By 1921 Congress established the Veterans Bureau, which consolidated the majority of existing veterans programs. President Harding nominated Col. Charles Forbes to lead the bureau, and Congress tasked him with building hospitals. Forbes promptly squandered the bureau’s budget, was relieved of his duties, and served time at the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., for conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.
A Department of Veterans Affairs health-care center in Ann Arbor, Mich. Photo: istock/getty images

In 1924 Brig. Gen. Frank T. Hines attempted reform, reorganizing the Veterans Bureau into six services—medical and rehabilitation, claims and insurance, finance, supply, planning, and control. By 1930, feeling political heat from the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, President Hoover decided that more was necessary to “coordinate Government activities affecting war veterans.” He created the Veterans Administration as an independent federal body, replacing three bureaus then separately overseeing all veterans programs. Two years later tens of thousands of veterans protested at the Capitol in what became known as the Bonus March. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.thepostemail.com/

In Hillary’s cringe-producing appearances over the past year and a half––since she lost the U.S. presidency in 2016 to Donald J. Trump––she has offered upward of 38 excuses to rationalize her loss, which Amanda Prestigiacomo has documented here exquisitely.

Among those excuses were sexism, the mainstream media, the electoral system, the Democratic National Committee, the Democrat Party, suburban women, stupid Americans, technology, deplorables, and, laughably, that she was “too honest.”

You get the picture––a classic, clinical case of paranoia and delusional thinking.

Oops…did I say 38 excuses? Make that 39! At a Shared Value Leadership Summit in New York City this past April, Hillary told the audience that she lost because she was a capitalist!

Right…and Donald Trump won because he’s a Communist!

Oops…did I say 39 excuses? Here, lawyer and Fox News commentator Gregg Jarrett lists 56 of Hillary’s excuses…and counting!

Among that Mt. Kilimanjaro of Hillary’s excuses, Jarrett lists: racism, misogyny, James Comey, the FBI, Russians, Vladimir Putin, WikiLeaks, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Twitter, Netflix, Chief Justice John Roberts, and The Drudge Report.

You get the picture––a classic case of Hillary’s pathological inability to look in the mirror!

Actually, the genuinely pitiful and self-deluding Hillary is so blind to her own behavior and so clueless about even the concept of accountability that she has spent her entire adult life not seeing what is obvious to literally everyone in the world!

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-supreme-court-rises-above-1530054005

Donald Trump is so polarizing that a test of his Presidency is whether American institutions can keep their bearings and hold to principle despite the passions of the moment. Five Supreme Court Justices did the country a service on Tuesday by sticking to the Constitution and rule of law on executive power rather than succumb to the temptation to rebuke an unpopular President’s dubious policy.

A 5-4 majority upheld Mr. Trump’s third “travel ban” from 2017 that restricted entry to America from eight countries. The ban in our view isn’t necessary, and the Court made no judgment on the policy merits. But Chief Justice John Roberts and four conservative Justices found that the ban falls well within the President’s core national-security powers. This is less a victory for Mr. Trump than for the ability of future Presidents to defend the country.

Hawaii (Hawaii v. Trump) argued that Mr. Trump exceeded the authority delegated to him by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and that his order was a pretext for excluding Muslims. But the Chief Justice ruled that the INA grants the President broad discretion to restrict the entry of aliens whenever he finds it “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

https://spectator.org/unmasked-americas-real-fascists/
From the Red Hen to Hollywood, the mask comes off.

They come in all different disguises.

* Protesters disrupting the Mexican restaurant meal of a Cabinet Secretary, forcing her to leave.

* The owner of an innocent-sounding “Red Hen” restaurant in Lexington, Virginia boasting that she refused to serve the presidential press secretary Sarah Sanders and asked her to leave. Sanders quite politely did. Now we learn from Sanders’ Dad, Governor Mike Huckabee, that when Sanders did as requested and went to another nearby restaurant — the angry Red Hen owner followed and kept harassing her. (Note: At press time I had heard that Sanders herself was present at another restaurant when harassed again by the owner of the Red Hen. This was later clarified. So to update correctly: Sanders and husband went home after the incident at the Red Hen, but the family with her stayed and it is they who were harassed a second time, not Sanders.)

* A Florida Democratic Party activist threatened Republican Congressman Brian Mast’s children, saying to one of the Congressman’s interns: “If you are going to separate kids at the border, I’m going to kill his kids.” News reports note that the man had called the Congressman’s office 478 times.

http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/394173-supreme-court-hands-trump-predictable-win-on-travel-ban

The Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. Hawaii today was more than a predictable reversal of the 9th Circuit appeals court in its dubious ruling that the travel ban was unconstitutional. As some of us noted from the outset of this litigation, the precedent heavily favored President Trump.

What was unprecedented was the degree to which courts relied on campaign statements and tweets by Trump to rule that the entry limits were based on religious animus. The ruling properly returns the courts, and others, to basic principles of legal process. Call it “The Red Hen moment” for the courts, where judges, appalled by Trump’s inflammatory and reckless comments against Muslims, refused to extend him the same deference shown to predecessors like former President Obama. The response from judges, however, seemed more visceral than analytical in ignoring the nondiscriminatory rationales cited by agencies for the policy.

The Supreme Court’s decision is, obviously, a major win for Trump, but it also is a major victory for those who believe courts must rule within the confines of the traditional record of review. CNN was quick to declare that this presidential order was “very different” from the original order. Despite my criticism of the original order — which was poorly drafted, poorly executed and poorly defended — it is not true that this decision was based on different questions. The challengers emphasized that the third order was based on the same threshold questions raised in the first order. The Supreme Court specifically hit the same flaw found in the first, second and third opinions, which was the reliance on the statements made by Trump on the campaign and over Twitter.