Victor Davis Hanson / Townhall Columnist
Veteran Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki cannot get a handle on the recent
scandalous treatment of veterans in VA hospitals, where more than 40 sick
men were allowed to die without proper follow-up treatment. A cover-up
allegedly followed. When the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal broke
under the George W. Bush administration, heads rolled. So far, Shinseki
seems immune from similar accountability.
Almost nothing that former Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen
Sebelius promised before, during or after the implementation of the
ill-starred Affordable Care Act came true. She was also cited by the U.S.
Office of Special Counsel for violating the Hatch Act, as she improperly
campaigned for Obama's re-election while serving as a Cabinet secretary.
IRS official Lois Lerner used the federal tax-collection agency to go
after groups deemed too conservative. She invoked the Fifth Amendment to
avoid telling Congress the whole truth.
Susan Rice, former U.N. ambassador and now national security advisor, flat
out deceived the public on five television appearances about the Benghazi
catastrophe. She insisted that the deaths of four Americans were due to a
spontaneous riot induced by a reactionary video maker -- even though she
had access to intelligence fingering al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists as the
culprits who planned the attack on the anniversary of 9/11.
Rice recently blamed Obama foreign policy failures on domestic political
polarization. But that is best described as the give and take of democracy
and was once thought to be our foreign policy strength.
Rice also knows little history. In 2007, in the midst of the surge, when
Americans were fighting for their lives to stabilize Iraq, then-Sen.
Hillary Clinton implied that the commanding general in Iraq, Gen. David
Petraeus, was a veritable liar. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid agreed
and declared that the war was already lost. Then-presidential candidate
Barack Obama prematurely wrote off the politically inconvenient surge as a
failure. Was Rice then shocked that "polarization" affected foreign
policy?
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton left office with American
foreign policy in shambles. She has been unable to make the argument that
a single initiative -- reset with Russia, lead from behind in Libya, red
lines on Syria, deadlines to Iran, complete withdrawal from Iraq, pressure
on the Israelis, outreach to radical Islam and Latin American communist
dictatorships -- had met with success.
Clinton infamously dismissed the lingering mysteries surrounding the
Benghazi deaths with, "What difference at this point does it make?" She
also refused, despite numerous entreaties, to place the now-infamous
Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram on a State Department terrorist watch
list.
Eric Holder is the first attorney general to have been held in contempt of
Congress. Aside from his divisive language (he called America "a nation of
cowards" and referred to African-Americans as "my people"), Holder always
seems to find himself at the center of scandals. He permitted the federal
monitoring of the Associated Press journalists. He green-lighted the Fast
and Furious gun-running scam. He has failed to bring to account rogue IRS
officials. Holder is the most morally compromised attorney general since
Nixon appointee John Mitchell.
Do we remember former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson? Her case was as
unprofessional as it was surreal. Jackson fabricated for herself an
alternate identity as a midlevel EPA employee. In communications, she used
a fake e-mail address and name, and then unethically honored her own alter
ego ("Richard Windsor") as a "scholar of ethical behavior." Who could have
dreamed up such an unethical caper?
What has happened to NASA? We are currently trying to isolate Vladimir
Putin for his territorial aggressions and yet beseeching the Russians to
send our astronauts into space. Perhaps NASA Administrator Charles Bolden
should not have boasted that one of NASA's "foremost" goals was "to reach
out to the Muslim world" and "to help them feel good about their historic
contribution to science, math and engineering." Americans might have
preferred Bolden stuck with rockets.
Former Secretary of Energy Steven Chu left under a cloud of controversy
involving crony capitalists getting millions of dollars in green loans
that produced nothing but failed companies. Former Labor Secretary Hilda
Solis slipped out of office, battling accusations of Hatch Act violations
and freebie rides on private jets from insider union friends. Former top
officials such as Timothy Geithner, Peter Orszag and Larry Summers have
given new meaning to the revolving door between Wall Street and the White
House.
The common denominator?
In all of these cases, politics trumped ethics. Because Obama professed
that he was on the side of the proverbial people, administrators assumed
that they had a blank check to do or say what they wished without much
media audit. The mystery is not whether some administration officials were
incompetent or unethical or both, but whether there are any left who are
not.
Victor Davis Hanson / Townhall Columnist 
Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs
As Howard Dean rants on national television that the GOP needs to
get out of America...after all everything to him and his ilk is the Republicans
fault...the ObamaCare 'supposed' glitches continue on as
Nevada follows Oregon (who had NOT one person sign-up though the
exchanges), Massachusetts, and Maryland, to become the fourth state to
admit its private enrollment system done though the ObamaCare exchanges
just cannot be fixed. Now leaving its state exchange behind, Nevada
will join federal HealthCare.gov...for at least one year anyway...even
though Republican Governor Brian Sandoval opposes ObamaCare. 
NOT good at all for Obama's signature health care law...his
'supposed' legacy...is a failure NO matter what he and his minions say
with even liberal media polls conducted by the likes of MSNBC, The
Washington Post, and USA Today all have found that more Americans say
ObamaCare has had a negative impact on their lives...on their
pocketbooks...than say it has had a positive impact.
And businesses will be hit as well as ObamaCare's soon to be
enforced employer penalties will rise from $3,000 per subsidized
full-time employee to $3,120 per employee. And the fines and penalties
that were put on hold for this year, continue to grow so that in 2015,
employers with at least 100 full-time-workers will owe $2,080 for each
of those workers after an exemption for the first 30.
Fact...ObamaCare also affects pre-911 disabled vets that require
24/7 care who are NOT eligible for Medicaid. Their family caregivers are
NOT covered under the Caregiver Act of 2010 as only post 911 caregivers
are covered, so the cost of these caregivers health care will now have
to come out of their own pockets or the caregiver will be fined or will
have to sign a waiver and NOT be covered.
And so to date ObamaCare continues to trudge along screwing 'We the
People'...screwing our veterans and their families...in the process. All
our fears about this most grievous of laws have come to pass...death
panels, rationed medicine, NOT being able to keep the coverage or
doctors one likes or can afford, coverage mandated for things one does
NOT want or need...the list is endless making ObamaCare a fraud plain
and simple...a fraud because simply allowing people to purchase
insurance across state lines...thus broadened the base...would have
allowed premium rates to drop without doing anything else to the
insurance set-ups. 
