Mediaboss Marketing

The Senate on Monday easily confirmed physician David Shulkin to be secretary of Veterans Affairs, charged with delivering on President Donald Trump's campaign promises to fix long-standing problems at the department.

Senators voted 100-0 to approve the former Obama administration official, who was the VA's top health official since 2015, in a rare show of bipartisanship amid partisan rancor over Trump's other nominees. Shulkin secured the backing of Senate Democrats after pledging at his confirmation hearing to always protect veterans' interests, even if it meant disagreeing at times with Trump.

The 57-year old physician has ruled out fully privatizing the agency and says wide-scale firings of VA employees are unnecessary, describing the VA workforce as "the best in health care." Trump had made accountability and rooting out wrongdoing a cornerstone of VA reforms, having called the department "the most corrupt."

Shulkin is the first nonveteran to head the government's second-largest agency, which has nearly 370,000 employees and an annual budget of nearly $167 billion.

He'll have plenty to do once sworn in. Shulkin has acknowledged that Congress should hold him to a higher standard of faster results as a former VA official who has laid initial groundwork for changes. He says he should be fired from his job if, like some VA secretaries before him, he isn't able to significantly fix problems and regain veterans' trust.

"You're not going to hear me asking for a learning curve," Shulkin said at his hearing. "I don't have a lot of patience and I am going to be serious about making these changes and regaining that trust."

The immediate challenge includes revamping scheduling and access for VA medical appointments following a 2014 wait-time scandal. Shulkin is urging a more integrated VA network where veterans could seek outside private care only in coordination with the VA. He has not sketched out full details.

"We've yet to hear from him how he'll pursue President Trump's vision for a public-private partnership at the VA," said Dan Caldwell, policy director for the conservative group Concerned Veterans for America.

Shulkin also will have to address long backlogs for veterans who apply for disability payments he calls its appeals system "broken and grapple with the White House's order of a 90-day federal hiring freeze. According to Shulkin, the White House agreed to exempt 37,000 out of 45,000 VA vacancies, but major veterans organizations say much more hiring is needed to eliminate red tape.

More:
Senate unanimously confirms Obama holdover David Shulkin as VA secretary - Chicago Tribune

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Like anything else that involves communication, your presidents recent interview with fellow belligerent white man Bill OReilly was a clusterfuck. Most of the fallout from it, though, focused on Bankruptcy Batista taking issue with OReillys categorization of Russian President Vladimir Putin as a killer.

There are a lot of killers, 45 shot back. Weve got a lot of killers. What do you think, our countrys so innocent?

When your new boyfriend is an authoritarian who may or may not have video of you being pissed on in a hotel, its unsurprising to see that you continue to serve as the Bonnie to his Clyde, the Bell Biv to his DeVoe and the eager bottom to his aggressive top. Thats what love is. Well, thats also blackmail, but same difference, in this instance. As frustrating as it was to hear him say that, youre not going to get my black self to rally too hard for the country that just allowed Attorney General Segregation Now, Segregation Forever to happen.

So while critics were correct in assailing a false equivalence slow cooking in a Crock-Pot of asininity and outlandishness, there was another declaration made by 45 that still slips and slides up and down my last nerve. It is a sentiment that 45 has hinted at before but never flat out said until now.

As he and OReilly discussed American Horror Story: The 2016 Presidential Election, 45 had the honeysuckle-colored gall to assert that former President Obama actually likes his bigoted ass. Of Obama, 45 explained to OReilly, Its a very strange phenomena. We get along. I dont know if hell admit this, but he likes me, I like him.

Any sensible soul has long been aware that 45 is too many fallen fries from a full order, too much ice for a satisfying full cup of strawberry soda and one nugget short of a worthwhile late-night drive-thru run. Still, how much is this man out of his rabbit-ass mind to think that Barry fucks with him? How could he possibly believe that the man against whom he lodged a dehumanizing, racist-conspiracy-theory-riddled campaign finds him anything other than a village idiot whos lucky that bigotry and white mediocrity can always take you far in America?

When asked what convinced him that Obama genuinely liked him, 45 responded, I can feel it.

Bankruptcy Batista says he can feel it, yall. Total, help me sing. Total, help me sing.

He continued:

We had a rough campaign. He was fighting better for Hillary then she did. He was vicious during the campaign towards me and I was vicious towards him. We said horrible things about each other. And then we hop into the car and we drive down Pennsylvania Avenue together and we dont even talk about it. Politics is amazing.

See, 45 is acting like those co-workers who dont understand that when their colleaguesnamely, the black ones who dont really fool with them like thatare being cordial, theyre simply being professional. In the case of Obama treating his successor with the dignity he doesnt deserve, that speaks to Obamas sense of duty. That is not the same thing as sincere affinity for a basket case who ought to be relegated to social media and reality television.

During the campaign trail, Obama repeatedly laid into that man over his bad business dealings, divisive rhetoric and terrible character. Those feelings didnt suddenly dissipate after Obama was compelled by duty to engage him. Of course, 45 doesnt know much of anything, much less about matters related to basic social skills.

In the article For Donald Trump, Friends in Few Places, Alan Feuer explored 45s lack of friendship in the failing New York Times. He doesnt really have a lot of friends, Billy Procida, a financier from New Jersey who served for years as one of Trumps top lieutenants, was quoted as saying. Pretty much all he does is work and play golf.

And, you know, bash people who dont align with his warped view about a given topic or affect his frail ego.

I dont know what will happen with this country. Im not sure if a global war wont start over tweet beef. Its not for certain that 45 will ever be impeached despite mounting evidence practically begging for it.

Right now, nothing is certain. That is, minus one thing: Barack Hussein Obama does not like this punk-ass man. Obama may love civility, but there is no reason this clownish president deserves to walk around this earth thinking that Obama likes him. Can everyone come together and let this man know that if he were drowning, Obama would probably go ask someone to whip up some grits for this fat fish thats about to fry?

If there is some White House employee reading this, sobbing under his or her desk about the decision he or she made, do the world a favor: Remind 45 of this clip. Let him know that Obama does not like him deep down; he doesnt like him at all. Then remind him that former first lady Michelle Obama likely still wants to knock his wig off.

Read the rest here:
President Bankruptcy Batista Thinks Obama Likes Him; Someone Remove This Lie From His Mind, Stat - The Root

A member of President Trumps transition team argued to a roomful of black executives and activists that the new administration has just as many black Cabinet members as former president Barack Obama had at the start of his first term one.

Elroy Sailor, a longtime African American strategist for the Republican Party, said he urged his Democratic and progressive friends to challenge Obama when he tapped Eric H. Holder Jr. to be attorney general and the only black member of his Cabinet.

I went to my Democratic friends and I said, as a black conservative, if we dont make this an issue now, its going to guarantee my party the license to say Were just going to pick the best person, Sailor said during a panel discussion as part of AT&Ts Black History Month forum.

Jamal Simmons, a Democratic political consultant who moderated the discussion, noted that Obama had appointed African Americans to the positions of U.S. trade representative and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

But Sailor countered that those were not traditional Cabinet posts. Some members of the audience, which in addition to AT&T employees included representatives from civil rights groups such as the NAACP and the Black Womens Roundtable, also argued that Obamas first Cabinet also included more women, Asians and Hispanics.

[Trumps administration isnt very diverse. Photo ops make it glaringly obvious]

President Trump's Cabinet choices don't necessarily reflect the changing demographics of the country. (Victoria Walker,Danielle Kunitz,Dani Player/The Washington Post)

Trumps sole black Cabinet nominee is Ben Carson, a former pediatric neurosurgeon, to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Of the 21 Cabinet-level picks for the new administration, four are women, two of them Asian Americans, and 16 are white males.

The 21 individuals who filled Obamas Cabinet-level positions included seven women, three Asian Americans, three African Americans and two Hispanics.

The discussion took place at AT&Ts annual luncheon named for Lewis Howard Latimer, a 19th-century African American inventor and draftsman. He worked for Alexander Graham Bell and drafted the drawings for Bells telephone. Other speakers included veteran civil rights leaders the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton; Marc Morial, director of the National Urban League; media entrepreneur Keith Clinkscale; and Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Sailor said that the new administration and Congress are planning to take on a range of issues that could help improve the lives of African Americans, including more support for historically black colleges and universities, criminal justice revisions and a massive infrastructure improvement plan.

Carson would have a major role in helping to make sure that infrastructure spending goes to poor, largely minority urban areas, Sailor said. He said that although Carson does not have government experience, Dr. Carson has Trumps ear and Dr. Carson wants to make a difference. He can bring in smart people around him.

[Up to 5 more Cabinet-level appointments set to be confirmed this week]

Although all of the Cabinet posts have been filled, Sailor said he and other black Republicans are coming up with names of individuals who can fill other positions in the administration, including sub-Cabinet and director positions, as well as spots on boards and commissions.

Despite murmurs from the audience, Sailor stuck by his argument that Obamas Cabinet choices in 2008 set a precedent for Republican presidents.

Simmons joked that Obamas appointment of Holder as the first African American attorney general is worth three Cabinet positions.

Sailor reiterated: As a black conservative it made my job a little harder. It really did.

You have a hard job, brother, a woman in the audience quipped, prompting laughter.

Visit link:
Black Republican strategist says Trump has same number of black Cabinet appointees as Obama did eight years ago - Washington Post

ICE agents rounded up hundreds of undocumented immigrants in an enforcement surgeand they appear to be casting a wider net than before.

Last week for Americas undocumented immigrants, President Trumps crackdown began.

Over the course of several days, the Department of Homeland Security conducted an enforcement surge in the biggest cities throughout the countryNew York, Los Angeles, Chicagoas well as smaller localities, arresting hundreds of undocumented immigrants and then moving to deport them as quickly as possible.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), federal agents picked up more than 680 people. That in and of itself isnt necessarily shocking. Though the raids generated protests in L.A. and significant media coverage, they arent a first by any stretchduring the Obama administration, ICE agents targeted women and children fleeing violence in Central America, and arrested more than 2,000 people in one nationwide operation. Immigrants rights activists nicknamed Obama the Deporter in Chief because of the millions of people his DHS deported.

But by the final years of his presidency, the Obama administration had changed its enforcement priorities, and insisted it was only targeting undocumented immigrants convicted of serious crimes (in the administrations view, getting a DUI or using a fake Social Security number counted as serious).

Last weeks raidsalong with new data on the enforcement surge that ICE released on Monday afternoonshow that things are changing, and fast. On Jan. 25, the president signed an executive order that gave ICEs top brass radically different directions as to whom they should target for deportation. Instead of focusing on people with criminal convictions, the executive order directed them to detain people suspected of breaking any state or federal law, including immigration laws. A number of analysts have concluded that this means upwards of 8 million undocumented immigrants are now top priority for deportation, as the Los Angeles Times detailed.

That said, ICE has still been telling reporters that its enforcement focus is on convicted criminals. And President Trump tweeted as much on Feb. 12:

The numbers indicate thats not entirely true. Secretary John Kelly, who heads DHS, released a statement on Feb. 13 saying about 75 percent of the people apprehended had been convicted of crimes. That, of course, means that about 170 of the people arrested last week didnt have criminal convictions. And this is new.

It does appear that the Trump administration is more vigorously enforcing immigration law, casting a wider net to remove more illegal or criminal immigrants who would have been safe from deportation under President Obama, said David Inserra, who analyzes homeland security issues for the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Though ICE says their enforcement efforts only targeted convicted criminals, gang members, and people who had already received deportation orders, the data makes it clear that when ICE agents encountered other undocumented immigrants, they apprehended them as well. And this has many immigration attorneys and activists furiousand worried.

There was definitely a strong enforcement component going on in the Obama administration, said Ben Johnson, who heads the American Immigration Lawyers Association. But at least it had the feature of having targeted results. The difference here seems to me they go into these enforcement actions with a particular intent, but theyre not committed to the results matching the intent.

Theyre okay with the fact that if we catch a lot of people who dont fit the profile of the people were going after, that will be okay, he continued. Thats the difference between the targeted enforcement action and a sweep.

ICE adamantly argues that reporters and activists should not use the word sweep to describe what happened last week.

Reports of ICE checkpoints and sweeps are false, dangerous and irresponsible, the agency said in a release about last weeks activity. These reports create panic and put communities and law enforcement personnel in unnecessary danger. Any groups falsely reporting such activities are doing a disservice to those they claim to support.

But Johnson argues that as long as ICE agents are detaining people who havent been convicted of crimes, then sweep is the only appropriate term to use.

Others say initial media reports have overstated the difference between Obama and Trump.

Thank You!

You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason

The biggest difference is that the press is covering them negatively, said Matthew Kolken, an immigration lawyer based in Buffalo, of the Trump raids. Obama spent his eight years saying he was deporting serious criminalsand he was deporting people with traffic tickets and kids with deportation orders that were entered without a lawyer, and the press just allowed him to lie.

That sentiment was echoed by Charles Kuck, a lawyer based in Atlanta. While he noted that Trump is deporting more people without serious criminal convictions (or any at all), he said that in the early years of Obamas presidency, his approach was similar.

All people remember about Obama is the last two years were nice, Kuck said. They didnt deport parents. People get used to that. But if you go back to 2013, it was horrible. The same type of fear gripped the communities. The only difference here is the rhetoric of Trump on top of the actions of ICE scare people more.

Another change? Immigrants now are increasingly likely to refuse to let ICE agents into their homes.

Online postings from a forum for ICE agentspostings that multiple attorneys flagged for The Daily Beastindicate that some agents have noticed immigrants are less likely to open the door when they knock.

The days of knocking on doors has been long gone, one user wrote on Feb. 11.

Yeah, my sup sent us an email saying we should be knocking on doors more, another user replied. I laughed

I got 10 hours to arrest an illegal alien; a third replied. when you come out that house whether by vehicle stop or consensual encounter on the street you are coming with me.

Immigrants rights groups and the ACLU have been widely circulating Know Your Rights social media postings, and many groups host regular training sessions on what immigrants can do if ICE shows up.

The Constitution covers everybody, Kuck said. Those pesky amendments? They belong to everybody. Every person is covered, not just citizens.

But Trumps enforcement surge still has immigrant communities frightened.

It seems to me, from what Im hearing, that theyre arresting everybody now for simple no-license offenses, said Dan Ortiz, a Georgia immigration attorney.

Overall, he added, since Trump took office, everyones scared.

Read more from the original source:
Is Trump Immigration Crackdown Worse Than 'Deporter-in-Chief' Obama? - Daily Beast

New York Times

Trump Criticized Obama for Golfing. Now He Spends Weekends on the Links. New York Times As a private citizen, Donald J. Trump was repeatedly critical of President Obama's fondness for relaxing with a round of golf. Can you believe that, with all of the problems and difficulties facing the U.S., President Obama spent the day playing golf ... Melania Trump Plans to Preserve Michelle Obama's Vegetable GardenTIME Obama wanted to be the high-speed rail president. It might be Trump instead.McClatchy Washington Bureau all 2,044 news articles »

Read more from the original source:
Trump Criticized Obama for Golfing. Now He Spends Weekends on the Links. - New York Times