Tag Archives: responsibilities

A Bit of Federal Funding

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The Trump administration said it would prioritize grant applications to the Title X family-planning program that come from organizations with a religious background and counsel abstinence or “natural” methods, a move abortion providers said will make it harder for them to get federal funding.

Health officials outlined the new rules Friday in announcing a fresh round of funding for Title X, which pays for services like contraception and infertility treatment.

What’s the downside of that?  The only one I can see, and it is a serious one, is the deemphasis on contraceptives and birth control counseling.  But making it harder for abortion providers to get our taxpayer money?  Nothing wrong with that.

Good for Them

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Former Olympic gymnasts, including Aly Raisman and McKayla Maroney, won’t participate in the US Olympic Committee’s investigation into the sexual-abuse scandal surrounding former national team doctor Larry Nassar, saying they don’t trust the body to conduct a thorough and independent inquiry.

They’re right not to trust these…persons…who sat on years of complaints of sexual abuse instead of acting on them.  Nor can they, in the end, trust any other organization with the judgment to have these on its payroll or consulting list.

“For 31 months, I heard nothing,” Ms Raisman said in a statement to The Journal. “I find it hard to believe after all this time that the USOC is genuinely concerned about anything other than the scrutiny it’s now facing.  …  This investigation needs to be bigger than Nassar. There have been countless allegations of abuse for years and years. Anything other than a full investigation just isn’t good enough.

She’s right.  This USOC is only looking to whitewash its role in this routine of abuse.  Nothing useful will occur unless and until the USOC, and USAG, are completely erased and new agencies built de nihilo.

Student Loan Debt

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This is appalling, and it says a lot (albeit it’s not the only thing able to be said) about the morals of those we’re “graduating” from college and university these days.

A study released Friday by the Brookings Institution finds that most borrowers who left school owing at least $50,000 in student loans in 2010 had failed to pay down any of their debt four years later.

Scofflaws. They need their wages garnished. If they’re unemployed, they need to be put into work programs–there are always highway rights of way that need cleanup, and ditches that need digging. They also can be put into AmeriCorps VISTA.

But no bailouts.

A Party’s Failure on Immigration

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The Party in question isn’t the Republican Party.  Those folks always have had a very stringent position on immigration, and they’ve not hidden their view from the public’s eye.  No, the failing party is the Progressive-Democratic Party.  Those folks have long claimed—a claim we now know to be a cynical pretense, a pretense consistent with the underlying philosophy of the party of Jim Crow and of racist and sexist affirmative action—to be champions of immigrants and of DACA children.  But last week, they voted against every bill, Republican-offered and “bipartisan,” that was brought up.  The Progressive-Democrats wouldn’t even vote for cloture so the bills could be openly debated on the Senate floor.

Many Republicans voted against the bills, too, it’s true enough.  But as I said, they’ve had a sterner view of immigration all along.  It’s the Progressive-Democrats who voted against their avowals, who welched on their public commitments to DACA children and to immigrants and immigrant wannabes.

The Progressive-Democratic Party has shown with last week’s display that they don’t give a damn about DACA children or about immigration reform generally.  They only want the issue for campaigning for their political gain.

DACA children aren’t human children.  Prospective immigrants—including the illegal aliens already present—aren’t adult humans.  They’re just shovels for digging up votes.

This is how the Progressive-Democratic Party so shamefully has said they view these people.  This is what all of us need to remember in the fall.

The Veterans Administration Is Not Getting Better

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VA Secretary David Shulkin, according to an IG report, has been misappropriating VA funds for his and his family’s personal benefit, and he’s been abusing his authority to require a subordinate to act as his “personal travel concierge.”  He

improperly accepted a gift of Wimbledon tennis tickets….

And his Chief of Staff, Vivieca Wright Simpson, apparently tampered with evidence:

made false claims to a VA ethics official by altering an email to get official approval for Dr Shulkin’s wife to take part in the trip as an “invitational traveler,” a status that meant the VA would cover her expenses. Her airfare cost taxpayers $4,312.

Shulkin and his fellow travelers (not only his wife) spent an exhausting 3 and a half days in business-related meetings out of their 10-day trip.  That’s some jet lag.

Of course, Shulkin and his staff denied all of this and complained that the week the IG gave him to respond was, somehow, not enough time.  Must have been still jet lagged.

He’s paid the money back?  He should have known better in the first place.  If the leadership cannot be counted on to perform, how can anyone else be?  Reallocate the VA budget—every single dollar of it—to vouchers for our veterans.

 

Veteranos Administratio delende est.