Veterans Affairs Department Botches Drug Return Program, Resulting in $14.6 Million in Losses

This week’s Golden Horseshoe is awarded to the Department of Veterans Affairs for its botched oversight of a drug-return program that has resulted in $14.6 million in taxpayer losses, according to the agency watchdog.

A recently released audit by the VA’s Office of Inspector General found the agency mismanaged the program and did not communicate with medical facility pharmacy chiefs to ensure the program’s protocols were followed.

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Pennsylvania GOP Senators’ Internal Battle Over Imperiled Forensic Election Audit Goes Public

An internal fight among legislators over a forensic election audit is spilling into public after Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Gettysburg, accused leaders in his own party of stonewalling his investigation.

The senator made the comments during a Thursday interview with One America News Network that he later doubled down on in a lengthy statement posted to his social media pages the following day.

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Pro-Mask Pediatrics Group Denies Scrubbing Resources on Importance of Faces in Child Development

Less than a week after the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published a lengthy tweet thread defending its pro-mask recommendations for children under 12, Twitter users started warning about an apparent memory-hole effort.

AAP resources on the importance of seeing faces to child development had recently disappeared from its website, now redirecting to the home page. It looked like AAP was trying to cover its tracks to align with its new recommendations.

The 67,000-member medical association has a different explanation: an unannounced website migration.

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Texas Counties That Requested Disaster Aid for Border Crisis Haven’t Got it, Officials Say

While Texas Gov. Greg Abbott this spring allocated $1 billion in border security funds to the state’s Department of Public Safety and 1,000 members of law enforcement to secure the border, counties that made disaster declarations over the illegal migrant crisis say they still haven’t received the resources they sought four months later.

“Kinney County has not received anything that we requested from the governor on April 21,” County Attorney Brent Smith told Just The News. “We have heard promises and have been told that all the resources that we so desperately require are available, but thus far, nothing has been delivered. Empty promises don’t keep our residents safe. Empty promises don’t secure our border.”

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Former President Trump at Alabama Rally: ‘Joe Biden Is a Failed President’

“Joe Biden is a failed president. He will always be a failed president,” former President Donald Trump told a crowd of thousands at a rally held Saturday night in Cullman, Alabama.

“No administration in history has gotten off to a worse start than the Biden administration,” the former president added.

The 45th president of the United States also blasted President Biden for his botched handling of the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. Billions of dollars of American equipment, as well as an estimated 10,000 American citizens, have been left behind as the Taliban took over the country in a matter of days earlier this month.

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‘Only White People Could Be Racist’: Staff Sue School District over Mandatory ‘Equity’ Training

Two employees of Missouri’s largest school district filed a complaint Wednesday against their government employer, alleging they were forced to affirm and promote an ideology with which they disagree.

Springfield Public Schools (SPS) employees Brooke Henderson and Jennifer Lumley claim that while the First Amendment protects public school employees from viewpoint discrimination, the school district “forces teachers and staff to affirm views they do not support, to disclose personal details that they wish to keep private, and to self-censor on matters of public interest,” according to the complaint.

SPS warns staff to “be professional” and “stay engaged” during equity training or they would be asked to leave and receive no credit, according to the complaint. This district-wide staff training program “demands that its staff ‘commit’ to equity and become ‘anti-racist educators.’”

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Commentary: Refugee Plans Repeat the Mistakes of the Afghanistan Campaign

The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan has produced moving scenes of disorder and desperation. Some see American fecklessness. Others, the rancid fruit of attempting to cultivate Afghanistan in our image. Finally, others see the Biden Administration making a hash of what was fundamentally a good policy of planned withdrawal. Even for those who supported withdrawal—as I did—the events of the last week undeniably were emblematic of the ongoing humiliation of the United States and its military. 

Defending his decisions, Joe Biden gave a surprisingly good speech, which could have just as easily come from Donald Trump or Ron Paul. But considering the circumstances, the tone was off. The speech only justified the withdrawal in general and avoided taking responsibility for its particulars, including the grim scene at the Kabul airport, for which Biden and his administration bear some responsibility. Biden defied credulity when he said, “We planned for every contingency.”

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U.S. Vetting Afghan Refugees with Biometrics but Uncertain of Some Identities, Memos Show

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is processing airlifted Afghan refugees in locations like Germany, Bahrain and Qatar before sending them to the Washington D.C.-area Dulles International airport, using biometrics when possible to identify those without official travel papers, according to internal memos obtained by Just the News.

The memos acknowledge all refugees are being screened for COVID-19 after they arrive in the United States, and some may be arriving without their identities ascertained.

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Texas Doctors Float Possibility of Denying Patients Based on Vaccination Status if ICUs Become Full

Doctors in North Texas have allegedly been crafting a policy that would allow them to discriminate against unvaccinated patients in the event that Intensive-Care Units (ICU) run out of bed space, as reported by Dallas News.

The plans were revealed in an internal memo that was leaked to writers at Dallas News’ “The Watchdog” column. The memo was written by Dr. Robert Fine, who serves as co-chair of the North Texas Mass Critical Care Guideline Task Force, a group that consists of roughly 50 members from hospitals throughout the North Texas region.

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Biden Helped Evacuate the French Embassy While Leaving American Citizens to the Mercy of the Taliban

President Joe Biden boasted during a press conference Friday that his administration supported the evacuation of the French embassy in Kabul while at the same time American citizens are being told the U.S. government cannot escort them to the airport.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul informed American citizens on Thursday that the Biden administration “cannot ensure safe passage to the airport.” The message came one day after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the U.S. military lacks the capability to escort Americans trapped behind enemy lines to the airport.

However, the Biden administration did have the capability to provide support to a convoy of hundreds of French people from their embassy to the airport, the president said Friday.

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Trump Administration’s Careful Afghanistan Withdrawal Plans Were Ignored by Biden, Former Trump Aide Says

Joe Biden’s national security team reportedly ignored the Trump administration’s careful plans for withdrawing from Afghanistan, resulting in the nightmare scenario currently unfolding in the war-torn country.

Former National Security Council Senior Director Kash Patel told Just the News’ John Solomon on Thursday, “I don’t even know that anyone could have made this awful scenario up. It’s literally worse than you could possibly conjure.”

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Commentary: The Tyranny of Experts

The principles and policies of America’s original progressives have received renewed attention over the last decade, both in academia and in public discourse. Today’s progressive politicians and intellectuals have pointed to their roots in the original progressive movement; moreover, the connections between the original progressive calls for reform and the language and shape of our politics today have become increasingly obvious. In what follows, the relevance of original progressivism to government today will be more fully explored. There is no better place to begin than with our administrative state. This essay deals with the general principles of the administrative state and its roots in the original progressive movement.

The term “administrative state” has come to have a variety of meanings, but at its core it points to the situation in contemporary American government, created largely although not entirely by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, whereby a large, unelected bureaucracy is empowered with significant governing authority. The fundamental question for many of those making reference to an “administrative state” is how it can be squared with government by consent and with the constitutional separation-of-powers system.

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Biden Administration Won’t Say If It Will Reimburse Americans Who Were Charged Thousands to Board Flights out of Afghanistan

Joe Biden

The State Department said it will “no longer” charge Americans thousands of dollars to board evacuation flights out of Afghanistan, but it did say if it will reimburse those that have already been charged.

State Department spokesman Ned Price issued a statement to the press Thursday afternoon saying the Biden administration has “no intention of seeking any reimbursement from those fleeing Afghanistan.” But as of late Friday afternoon, nearly 24 hours after Price issued his statement, Americans seeking to secure evacuation out of Kabul continue to be told in a required government form that they’ll need to reimburse the U.S. government upwards of $2,000 or more for their evacuation.

“Repatriation flights are not free,” question 14 of the Repatriation Assistance form stated late Friday afternoon. “A promissory note for the full cost of the flight, which may exceed $2,000 per person, must be signed by each adult passenger before boarding.”

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Mike Richards Out as ‘Jeopardy!’ Host Following Resurfacing of Controversial Remarks on Podcast

Mike Richards has stepped down as the host of “Jeopardy!” just days after being appointed the new host, following the resurfacing of past inappropriate comments made on a podcast.

“Dear Team – it pains me that these past incidents and comments have cast such a shadow on Jeopardy! as we look to start a new chapter,” Richards wrote in a statement released by Sony, adding that the company will now “resume the search for a permanent syndicated host,” and will bring back guest hosts in the meantime.

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