The curious case of Bob Bergdahl’s apparent tweet to the Taliban

Since Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was captured in the mountains of Afghanistan in 2009, his father had become an expert on Guantanamo Bay’s detainees. It was out of necessity, because the Taliban demanded that the United States free prisoners from Guantanamo in exchange for Bergdahl.

“No family in the United States understands the detainee issue like ours,” Robert Bergdahl said in a 2011 plea to his son’s captors.

So it wasn’t entirely unusual when Bergdahl apparently published a tweet last week about Guantanamo’s detainees. Except this tweet was directed at a Taliban spokesman. And it came just four days before it was announced that his son was finally being released.

“I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners,” the tweet said, according to various screen grabs. The tweet was subsequently deleted. “God will repay for the death of every Afghan child, ameen.”

The elation over the release of America’s only prisoner of war has mixed with questions about the circumstances of his disappearance — and the cost of his return.

The recent tweet has only fanned those flames in some quarters.

Former GOP Rep. Allen West labeled it a potential “smoking gun.”

“Folks, this is either a very bad case of Stockholm Syndrome or something far more nefarious is at stake,” wrote West, a popular conservative activist. “Regardless, there is more to this than meets the eye of Obama making a unilateral decision and announcement on a Saturday — when he believes no one is watching.”

Bergdahl’s critics view the tweet as another demonstration of the father’s and son’s contempt for their own country. But the elder Bergdahl’s Twitter feed — @bobbergdahl — tells a more nuanced story.

In addition to calling for the release of Guantanamo detainees, Bergdahl also tweeted in solidarity with a a host of prisoners elsewhere, including abducted journalist James Foley, who was detained in Syria; Saeed Abedini, an American Christian pastor jailed in Iran; and Kenneth Bae, an American jailed in North Korea.

Bergdahl has also used Twitter to stay in constant contact with his son’s supporters and sympathizers, tweeting often about his son and sharing articles about the war in Afghanistan interspersed with a few anti-war links and videos.

It’s unclear why this particular tweet was deleted: A spokesman for the family told The Post on Monday that Bob and Jami Bergdahl were asked by the media about the now-missing message upon their return to Idaho from Washington. But the Bergdahls didn’t discuss it.

“They just nodded their head in acknowledgement of the question, but they didn’t address [it] in their remarks,” said Col. Timothy Marsano, the family spokesman.

During their long, painful wait for their son’s safe return, the Bergdahls have vacillated between quiet, consistent remembrance and outspoken activism.

After his son’s capture, Bergdahl appeared to pour himself into an effort to find solidarity with his missing son. He grew a long beard and learned Pashto and Urdu, languages spoken along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

And it has been no secret that he offers compassion to his son’s captors.

“Strangely to some we must also thank those who have cared for our son for almost two years,” Bergdahl said in the 2011 video message to the Taliban. “We know our son is a prisoner and at the same time a guest in your home.”

Last year, during a rally hosted by the P.O.W. activist organization Honor-Release-Return, Bergdahl commented that the Taliban treated his son “fairly.”

“Bowe and the other Americans in captivity have been extremely fortunate not to be badly mistreated by the Taliban,” he said, referring to other unnamed Americans in captivity, as he often does.

At times during the last five years, he considered taking matters into his own hands. He thought about going to Pakistan to retrieve his son himself.

“I’ll talk to them,” he told Rolling Stone Magazine in a 2012 profile. “I’ll bring him home myself.”

And he has said he maintains constant e-mail contact with a Taliban member with knowledge of his son’s whereabouts.

When negotiations stalled in 2012, the Bergdahls spoke out forcefully in favor of the exchange of Guantanamo prisoners for their son, in an interview with the Idaho Mountain Express — even while they praised the U.S. government’s handling of the situation.

    Mr. and Mrs. Bergdahl … are advocating that the Pentagon and the White House consider swapping one or more U.S. prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for their son.

    “I’m pushing it hard,” Mr. Bergdahl said. “We started out by trying to encourage the Taliban to take care of our son. … Now, we’re worried that the government isn’t concerned enough to put him on the (negotiating) table.” …

    Mr. Bergdahl said he believes a deal to swap Taliban prisoners at Guantanamo for Bowe would be a “win-win” for the United States—his son could be returned safely to Idaho and the government could foster goodwill with the Afghan people.


After five years of waiting, the U.S. finally did.

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US Airways Cross-country flight diverted after dog poops

A cross-country fight had to make an unscheduled landing when a service dog pooped twice in the aisle, sickening passengers with the odor.

US Airways spokesman Andrew Christie said the May 28 US Airways flight from Los Angeles to Philadelphia had to make an unscheduled stop in Kansas City,

Christie called the episode a "rare and unfortunate situation." The flight continued after the mess was cleaned up on the ground. The passenger and service dog were rebooked on another flight.

Jim Kutsch, president at The Seeing Eye guide dog school in Morristown, New Jersey, tells The Philadelphia Inquirer that such incidents are rare, but that dogs occasionally get sick on planes, too.

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Toddler badly burned by police device during Georgia drug raid

Habersham County :_ A 19-month-old boy was fighting for his life at an Atlanta hospital on Friday after being severely burned by a "flash bang" grenade police tossed into the house to distract a drug suspect during a raid, police said.

The toddler was injured early on Wednesday when the device landed in the playpen where the child was sleeping, said Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell.

An undercover officer had purchased methamphetamine from a man who lived in the house, and police returned to arrest him in a “no-knock” raid, Terrell said. The suspect had previously been arrested on weapons charges, according to the sheriff.


Officers used a battering ram to open the home's locked door,Terrell said.

“They opened it up just enough to get the flash bang in,” said the sheriff. Terrell called the incident “devastating” but unavoidable, as officers did not know the crib was in front of the door.

“All the information we had was that there were no children in the house,” he said. “All you can do is pray for the child, pray for the family, pray for the officers."

The toddler was treated by medics at the scene and then taken to an Atlanta hospital where he was placed in a medically induced coma, the sheriff said. Hospital officials would not release any information on Friday about his condition.

The drug suspect, a relative of the child, was not in the house during the raid but later was arrested nearby, Terrell said.

The boy's parents told local media it could be weeks before they know if he will survive and what treatment he will need.

“He's only a baby, he didn't deserve any of this," the toddler’s mother, Alecia Phonesavanh, told Atlanta television station WSB.

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State orders users to stop pumping from streams

For the first time in nearly 40 years, drought-stricken California has ordered more than 2,600 water agencies and users in the Sacramento Valley to stop pumping water from streams.

A car sits in dried and cracked earth of what was the bottom of the Almaden Reservoir on January 28, 2014 in San Jose, California.

The Sacramento Bee reports Friday that the State Water Resources Control Board imposed the curtailment notice this week.

The notice affects water agencies, farms, cities and other property owners with so-called "junior" water rights, or those issued by the state after 1914. It extends to the Sacramento River and its many tributaries.

Major urban water providers such as the city of Sacramento are included, though most of the affected users are farmers and large irrigation districts.

The newspaper reports water cuts on this scale have not been ordered in California since the drought of 1977.

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Obama says press secretary Jay Carney resigning

President Barack Obama disclosed he's losing his chief spokesman on the same day that the president came to the White House briefing room to personally announce the resignation of his Veterans Affairs secretary.

This May 19, 2014 file photo shows White House Press Secretary Jay Carney listens during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington. Carney is leaving his post and his No. 2 is taking over.

It was a Friday not quite like any other recently.

Press secretary Jay Carney had a surprise visitor to his daily news briefing, which began not long after Obama's visit there to discuss Secretary Eric Shinseki's departure.

Standing next to Carney in the crowded room, Obama said it was "bittersweet" to see his friend step down after three and a half years on the podium.

At the same time, Obama announced that Josh Earnest, currently principal deputy press secretary, would be taking over.

Carney said the transition will be complete around mid-June, but that Earnest will take his place traveling next week on a trip that Obama has scheduled to Europe.

Carney brought rare but practical experience to the job as a former reporter who once covered the White House for Time magazine. He left journalism to join the White House as communications director for Vice President Joe Biden, and subsequently moved over to serve as Obama's press secretary in 2011.

"He comes to this place with a reporter's perspective," Obama told reporters after interrupting Carney mid-sentence at the beginning of Carney's daily news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room. "That's why, believe it or not, I think he will miss hanging out with you."

A key component of a White House press secretary's job is to regularly joust with reporters in an intense question-and-answer session.

Obama said that Carney had demonstrated good judgment and temperament and said he will continue to rely on his advice from outside the West Wing. The two men embraced before Obama made his exit.

Obama said he is putting the "flak jacket" for dealing with the press on another friend in Earnest, who has worked with Obama since he was his communications director for the Iowa caucuses in the 2008 campaign.

The affable Earnest is well-liked within the White House press corps, and reporters applauded the announcement.

"As you know, his name describes his demeanor," Obama said. "Josh is an earnest guy and you can't find just a nicer individual even outside of Washington."

Obama also teased Earnest for being the "golden voice and dulcet tones" that narrates West Wing Week, the weekly recap of White House events on YouTube.

The president said Carney plans to take the summer off before getting a new job.

Carney said he's made no decision yet on his next step, but is excited about some of the possibilities he's begun to explore. He ruled out rumors that he would serve as ambassador to Russia, after having covered the collapse of the Soviet Empire for Time, saying his wife and two children wouldn't welcome such a move.

Carney expressed his appreciation for working at the White House for five years, even though he says being press secretary is not easy.

"It's an important interaction that takes place here," Carney said. "It's not always pretty. It could certainly be better. But to be a part of it is an honor and a joy for me. And no matter how tough the briefing is, I walk out of here having been glad to stand here."

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1 dead, 1 injured in New Jersey floor collapse

A fire official says a collapse in the basement of a northern New Jersey restaurant has killed one construction worker and injured another.

Emergency crews are on the scene at Coda Restaurant and Bar in Maplewood.

Deputy Fire Chief Joseph tells News 12 New Jersey that it's not clear what the workers were doing when the floor above the basement apparently collapsed Friday morning.

Callaghan says the injured worker is in serious condition. A third worker escaped injury.

Authorities are on the scene of a possible partial building collapse on Maplewood Avenue in Maplewood.

Information from: News 12, http://www.news12.com

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US border agency releases report on use of force

The U.S. Border Patrol's parent agency has released a critical report that it commissioned amid complaints that agents used excessive force, a step that the new commissioner says is part of a commitment to transparency.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent looks into Tijuana, Mexico, from the American side of the U.S.-Mexico border fence near San Diego, California.

The report by the Police Executive Research Forum that was released Friday says some agents are suspected of intentionally placing themselves in the escape route of assailants in fleeing vehicles before firing guns. It also says some shootings of rock throwers were questionable, especially when the attackers were hurling projectiles from across the border in Mexico.

The report was released with revised guidelines on use of force.

The Customs and Border Protection agency steadfastly resisted calls from members of Congress and immigration activists to release the report after it was completed in February 2013.

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Central American migrants in Texas flown to Arizona and released

Authorities flew 400 people suspected of entering the United States illegally to Arizona over the weekend and released them at bus stops because detention facilities were full after a surge in migrants, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

Migrants, consisting of mostly women and children, disembark from a U.S. ICE bus at a Greyhound bus station in Phoenix.

Over the past month, detention facilities in Texas overflowed with migrants for the first time as a large influx of Central Americans crossed the border into the Rio Grande Valley, said Andy Adame, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman in Tucson, Arizona.

“We have enough manpower, it’s due to detention space,” Adame said in explaining why the immigrants, mostly families with young children, were sent to Arizona.

Many Republicans in Congress and some state lawmakers say the federal government is not doing enough to secure the U.S. southern border, while a number of groups push for policy reform to allow the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country to obtain a pathway to U.S. citizenship.

Many people who cross the border illegally from Mexico are quickly returned by the U.S. Border Patrol, but those from Central America and other regions are supposed to be transferred to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) so they can be flown home.

The 400 migrants who crossed into Texas were transferred into the custody of ICE and released, dropped off at bus stops in Tucson and Phoenix, according to that agency.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the migrants will be required to report within 15 days to an agency office near where they were dropped off, and their cases will then be handled based on immigration enforcement priorities.

Federal officials under President Barack Obama have focused their immigration enforcement priorities on turning back unauthorized immigrants stopped in border regions and deporting others outside of those areas who are convicted of crimes.

On Tuesday, Obama asked his administration to hold off on making changes to deportation policy until the end of the summer in order to allow Congress time to pass immigration legislation.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which calls for restrictions on immigration, said the released migrants will likely slip away and avoid deportation if they do not commit any crime.

"Essentially, they have gotten successfully into the country and it's unlikely that they're going to leave,” Mehlman said.

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New Mexico:Cook licked sandwiches,served officers

A cook at a New Mexico facility that trains state corrections employees faces battery charges after authorities say she secretly licked sandwiches then served them to probation and parole officers.

Yolanda Arguello 

KOAT-TV reports (http://goo.gl/MCnk5i) Yolanda Arguello (ar-GWAY'-oh) was charged this week following witness interviews into the bizarre allegations at the South Valley New Mexico Women's Recovery Academy in Albuquerque.

According to a criminal complaint, witnesses told investigators that the 59-year-old would take a piece of cheese, lick it and put it on sandwiches at the academy. Another witness told authorities Arguello was seen sucking on an ice cube and putting it back into a cup before handing it to a staff member.

She is charged with three counts of battery on a peace officer.

A phone listing for Arguello was disconnected, and it was unknown if she had an attorney.

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Embattled VA secretary resigns

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned Friday after publicly apologizing for systemic problems plaguing the agency’s health care system.

President Barack Obama said he accepted the retired four-star general’s resignation “with considerable regret” during an Oval Office meeting. Shinseki had been facing mounting calls to step down from lawmakers in both parties since a scathing internal report out Wednesday found broad and deep-seated problems in the sprawling health care system, which provides medical care to about 6.5 million veterans annually.

Obama said Shinseki had served with honor, but the secretary told him the agency needs new leadership and he doesn’t want to be a distraction. “I agree. We don’t have time for distractions. We need to fix the problem,” Obama said.

The president named Sloan D. Gibson, currently the deputy VA secretary, to run the department on an interim basis while he searches for another secretary.

A career banker, Gibson has held the No. 2 post at the department since February of this year. He came to the department after serving as president and chief executive officer of the USO, a nonprofit organization that provides programs and services to US troops and their families, and after a 20-year career in banking.
Gibson is the son of an Army Air Corps member who served in World War II and grandson of a World War I Army infantryman.

In a speech earlier Friday to a veterans group, Shinseki said the problems outlined in the report were “totally unacceptable” and a “breach of trust” that he found indefensible. He announced he would take a series of steps to respond, including ousting senior officials at the troubled Phoenix health care facility, the initial focus of the investigation.

He concurred with the report’s conclusion that the problems extended throughout the VA’s 1,700 health care facilities nationwide, and said that “I was too trusting of some” in the VA system.

The VA has a goal of trying to give patients an appointment within 14 days of when they first seek care. Treatment delays — and irregularities in recording patient waiting times — have been documented in numerous reports from government and outside organizations for years and have been well-known to VA officials, members of Congress and veterans service organizations.

But the controversy now swirling around the VA stems from allegations that employees were keeping a secret waiting list at the Phoenix hospital — and that up to 40 patients may have died while awaiting care. A preliminary VA inspector general probe into the allegations found systemic falsification of appointment records at Phoenix and other locations but has not made a determination on whether any deaths are related to the delays.

The agency has been struggling to keep up with a huge demand for its services — some 9 million enrolled now compared to 8 million in 2008. The influx comes from returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, aging Vietnam War vets who now have more health problems, a move by Congress to expand the number of those eligible for care, and the migration of veterans to the VA during the last recession after they lost their jobs or switched to the VA when their private insurance became more expensive.

Shinseki said the last several weeks have been “challenging” but that his agency takes caring for veterans seriously.

“I can’t explain the lack of integrity,” he told a homeless veterans group. “I will not defend it, because it is not defensible.” The beleaguered Cabinet official received a standing ovation and loud applause.

An inspector general’s report found that about 1,700 veterans in need of care were “at risk of being lost or forgotten” after being kept off the waiting list.

Shinseki and Obama arrive for a December 2008 press conference after Shinseki was named Obama’s choice for VA secretary.

The report confirmed earlier allegations of excessive waiting times for care in Phoenix, with an average 115-day wait for a first appointment for those on the list — nearly five times as long as the 24-day average the hospital had reported.

“This situation can be fixed,” Shinseki told an audience of several hundred people from around the nation who have been working with the VA on helping homeless veterans. “Leadership and integrity problems can and must be fixed — and now.”

He said the government would not give any performance bonuses this year, would use all authority it has against those “who instigated or tolerated” the falsification of wait time records, and that performance on achieving wait time targets will no longer be considered in employee job reviews. He also asked Congress to support a bill by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) which would give the department more authority to remove senior government employees who are in leadership positions.

The House has passed a similar bill that would give the VA more ability to fire up to 450 senior executives at the agency.

Those attending Shinseki’s speech in a downtown Washington hotel were overwhelmingly friendly and supportive because of his work in sharply decreasing homelessness among veterans. Shinseki at one point noted that the number of homeless veterans has fallen by nearly 25 percent since 2013. The audience gave him a long standing ovation, whistling and hooting, when he entered the room and again before and after he spoke.

“He has made a difference. I’m living it,” said James Wheatley, a 20-year veteran of the Army who now works at a mental health facility that helps veterans in Indianapolis.

“He’s a good man,” said Steven Nelson, a veteran who works at an employment center in Tucson. “When I go to the VA (for health care), I’m well taken care of and everybody I know is.”

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Shinseki resigns amid veterans' health care uproar

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki apologized in public and then resigned in the privacy of the White House on Friday, driven from office by a mushrooming scandal over the agency's health care system that serves millions of the nation's former warriors.

U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki departs after addressing the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans May 30, 2014 in Washington, DC.

President Barack Obama said he accepted the resignation "with considerable regret," and appointed Sloan Gibson, the agency's No. 2 official, as temporary secretary. Obama also said that the Justice Department would determine if any illegality had occurred, and that a top White House aide who has been detailed to the Veterans Affairs Department would remain there for the time being.

As for Shinseki, Obama said, "I regret that he has to resign under these circumstances." He lavished praise on the Vietnam veteran and former Army chief of staff for his decades of service. He said the Cabinet officer had told him "he does not want to be a distraction" from the need to repair the agency, a task the president said pointedly could well require Congress to approve additional money.

A lifetime of service, in uniform and out, wasn't enough to save Shinseki's career, though, after agency investigators reported widespread problems in its sprawling hospital system. They reported that 1,700 veterans seeking treatment at the Phoenix facility alone were consigned to limbo because they had never been added to official wait lists.

In the 36 hours that followed the findings on Wednesday, Democrats in tough re-election races joined Republicans in clamoring for Shinseki's resignation.

In an appearance before a veterans group before he met with Obama, Shinseki said, "I extend an apology to the people whom I care most deeply about — that's the veterans of this great country — to their families and loved ones, who I have been honored to serve for over five years now. It's the calling of a lifetime."

He called the problems outlined in the midweek report "totally unacceptable" and a "breach of trust" that he found indefensible. He announced he would take a series of steps to respond, including ousting senior officials at the troubled Phoenix health care facility.

He concurred with the report's conclusion that the problems extended throughout the VA's 1,700 health care facilities nationwide, and he said that "I was too trusting of some" in the VA system.
Obama said Shinseki told him the agency needs new leadership and that he didn't want to be a distraction. "I agree. We don't have time for distractions. We need to fix the problem."

As his last act as a Cabinet official, Shinseki submitted a preliminary audit, which concluded that some VA schedulers were pressured to make waiting times for medical appointments appear shorter than they actually were.

The review said the agency would revoke a 14-day standard as a goal in performance reviews, and also suspend bonuses for this budget year.

Republicans in Congress said Shinseki's resignation alone wasn't enough to solve problems at an agency that has been struggling to keep up with a huge increase in demand for its services. About 9 million veterans are now enrolled in the health care system, roughly 1 million more than only six years ago. The influx comes from returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, aging Vietnam War vets who now have more health problems, a move by Congress to expand the number of those eligible for care and the migration of veterans to the VA during the last recession after they lost their jobs.

And Shinseki's departure seemed unlikely to end an election-year political struggle between the parties.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the resignation "does not absolve the president of his responsibility to step in and make things right for our veterans." He and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called on Democrats to join them in legislation "that would help to fix this system that has so failed our veterans."

The Republican-controlled House passed one measure recently to give the VA more ability to fire up to 450 senior executives. The Democratic-controlled Senate is likely to debate a different version in the following week.

Gibson, the president's choice to take over the agency at least temporarily, has held the No. 2 post since February. He was formerly president and chief executive officer of the USO, the nonprofit organization that provides programs and services to U.S. troops and their families. Gibson is the son of an Army Air Corpsman who served in World War II and grandson of a World War I Army infantryman.

The VA has a goal of trying to give patients appointments within 14 days of when they first seek care. Treatment delays — and irregularities in recording patient waiting times — have been documented in numerous reports from government and outside organizations for years and have been well-known to VA officials, members of Congress and veterans service organizations.

But the controversy now swirling around the VA stems from allegations that employees were keeping a secret waiting list at the Phoenix hospital — and suggestions that up to 40 patients may have died while awaiting care. A preliminary VA inspector general probe into the allegations found systemic falsification of appointment records at Phoenix and other locations but has not made a determination on whether any deaths are related to the delays.

President Barack Obama makes a statement in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, May 30, 2014, following his meeting with Veterans Affairs Secretary Shinseki.

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Veterans Affairs scandal:1,700 vets kept off waiting list.

Navy veteran Ken Senft turned to the Department of Veterans Affairs for medical care in 2011 after his private insurance grew too costly. It could have been a fatal mistake, he now says.

A few years ago, the 65-year-old had a lesion on his head. He went to a VA clinic near his home outside Phoenix, but he said the doctor told him it could be two years before he might get an appointment with a dermatologist.

So he paid out of pocket to see a private physician. Turns out, he had cancer.

"What if I had waited two years?" Senft said in frustration. "I might be dead."

Senft's story comes amid allegations of delayed care and misconduct at VA facilities across the nation.

A probe of operations at the Phoenix VA Health Care System found that about 1,700 veterans in need of care were "at risk of being lost or forgotten" after being kept off an official waiting list. The investigation, initially focused on the Phoenix hospital, found systemic problems in the VA's sprawling nationwide system, which provides medical care to about 6.5 million veterans annually.

The scathing report by the VA Office of Inspector General released Wednesday increased pressure on VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to resign.

The top Republican and Democrat in the House, however, weren't ready to join in those calls. House Speak John Boehner said he is reserving judgment, while Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said she has great respect for Shinseki and firing him would reward those who misled him.

President Barack Obama found report's findings "extremely troubling," his spokesman, Jay Carney, said.

"As the president said last week, the VA must not wait for current investigations of VA operations to conclude before taking steps to improve care," Carney said in a statement.

The interim findings confirmed allegations of excessive delayed care in Phoenix, with an average 115-day wait for a first appointment for those on the waiting list. That's nearly five times longer than the Phoenix hospital system had reported to national VA administrators.

"While our work is not complete, we have substantiated that significant delays in access to care negatively impacted the quality of care at this medical facility," Richard J. Griffin, the department's acting inspector general, wrote in the 35-page report. It found that "inappropriate scheduling practices are systemic throughout" some 1,700 VA health facilities nationwide, including 150 hospitals and more than 800 clinics.

Griffin said 42 centers are now under investigation.

"What makes me angry is the fact that there are a lot of veterans who couldn't afford to do what I did, and it would have been too late for them," said Senft, who was wounded during the Vietnam War. "It's just a disappointment when you serve your country and you expect to get good medical care - and you just don't."

Several Republican lawmakers and a handful of Democrats have called for Shinseki's resignation.

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also have called for criminal probes.

"I believe that this issue has reached a level that requires the Justice Department involvement. These allegations are not just administrative problems. These are criminal problems," McCain said during a news conference.

Miller said the report confirmed that "wait time schemes and data manipulation are systemic throughout VA and are putting veterans at risk in Phoenix and across the country."

Dr. Samuel Foote, a former clinic director for the VA in Phoenix who was the first to bring the allegations to light, said the findings were no surprise.

"I knew about all of this all along," Foote told The Associated Press. "The only thing I can say is you can't celebrate the fact that vets were being denied care."

Still, Foote said it is good that the VA finally appears to be addressing long-standing problems.

"Everybody has been gaming the system for a long time," he said. "Phoenix just took it to another level. ... The magnitude of the problem nationwide is just so huge, so it's hard for most people to get a grasp on it."

Shinseki called the Inspector General's findings "reprehensible to me, to this department and to veterans." He said he was directing the Phoenix VA to immediately address each of the 1,700 veterans waiting for appointments. The hospital system's director has already been placed on leave amid the probe.

Reports that VA employees have been "cooking the books" have exploded since Foote went public with allegations that management at the VA in Phoenix had instructed staff to keep a secret waiting list to hide delayed care and that as many as 40 patients may have died while waiting for appointments.

Griffin said he's found no evidence so far that any of those deaths were caused by delays.

Lawmakers say the agency's 14-day target for seeing patients seeking appointments is unrealistic, while the Inspector General's report found it encourages employees to "game" the appointment system in order to collect performance bonuses.

The report described a process in which schedulers assigned appointments based on the next available slot, but marked it down as the patient's desired date.

"This results in a false 0-day wait time," the report said.

Thomas Lynch, of the Veterans Health Administration, an arm of the VA, said VA health care quality compares favorably with that in the private sector while also explaining that a bonus system based on meeting the 14-day goal had a negative effect.

"Our performance measures have become our goals, not tools to help us understand where we needed to invest resources," he told the House Veterans Affairs Committee late Wednesday. "We undermined the integrity of our data when we elevated our performance measures to goals."

Griffin said investigators' next steps include determining whether names of veterans awaiting care were purposely omitted from electronic waiting lists and at whose direction and whether any deaths were related to delays in care.

Investigators at some of the 42 facilities "have identified instances of manipulation of VA data that distort the legitimacy of reported waiting times," he said.

Griffin said investigators are making surprise visits, a step that could reduce "the risk of destruction of evidence, manipulation of data, and coaching staff on how to respond to our interview questions."

U.S. Justice Department officials have already been brought into cases where there is evidence of a criminal or civil violation, Griffin said.

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41 charged in insurance scam involving dead deer

Forty-one people in Philadelphia are facing charges in what prosecutors call an elaborate insurance fraud scheme that used dead deer to fake car accidents.

Undated booking photograph of Ronald Galati.

Ronald Galati Sr. is accused of running a $5 million scam out of his auto body shop.

District Attorney Seth Williams said Wednesday that Galati coached customers to claim they'd struck a deer rather than a car. That way, insurance companies would consider them "no fault" accidents and pay the claims without raising the customers' premiums.

Investigators say Galati stored deer carcasses, blood and fur in the back of his shop to use as props.

Also charged are Galati's wife, son and daughter, several insurance adjusters, tow truck drivers, a city official and a police officer.

Defense attorney Anthony Voci said he couldn't comment specifically on the charges because he hadn't seen the grand jury presentment but that his client is innocent until proven guilty.

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U.S. charges five Boston airline employees with smuggling cash

Federal prosecutors in Boston on Thursday charged five U.S. airline employees with agreeing to use their security passes to smuggle $417,000 in cash that the employees believed to be the proceeds of illegal drug sales through the city's airport.

Airline customers queue up to check in at Logan International Airport during a winter storm in Boston, Massachusetts January 2, 2014.

Employees of JetBlue Airways Corp and Delta Air Lines Inc agreed to work with a foreign national who was cooperating with federal investigators. The witness had a prior drug arrest.

From August 2012 through February 2014, the airline employees met the witness in airport bathrooms and carried cash through security checkpoints at Boston's Logan International Airport, prosecutors said.

They carried the cash onto flights bound to Florida, prosecutors said.

The five defendants are Rupert Crossley, 25, Alvin Leacock, 27, Eric Vick, 24, Anthony Trotman, 24, and Dino Dunkley, 31. Each faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

"Security at our nation's airports is paramount and the conduct alleged today is alarming," U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz said in a statement.

"A potentially dangerous breach in security was identified."

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Michael A. Brown Gets 39 Months in Jail

Former DC Council Member Michael A. Brown Gets 39 Months in Jail.

Among the bribes Brown accepted was $10,000 stuffed inside a coffee tumbler. Photograph via US Attorney's office.

Brown was sentenced after pleading guilty to taking $55,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents.

Former DC Council member Michael A. Brown was sentenced Thursday to spend more than three years in prison for accepting $55,000 in bribes from undercover federal agents.

Chief Judge Richard W. Roberts of federal district court for DC said he was “stunned” by Brown’s crime and apparent history of campaign malfeasance. “The citizens of the District of Columbia are better than that and they deserve better than that,” Roberts said while handing down the sentence.

In total, Brown, 49, will serve 39 months behind bars, followed by two years of supervised release and 200 hours of community service, Roberts ordered. 

Prosecutors had asked for 43 months in jail for Brown, and Roberts told the courtroom multiple times Brown could have merited nearly six years in prision.

Brown pleaded guilty last June to accepting multiple cash bribes from undercover FBI operatives posing as contractors seeking to do business with the city government. The payments started in July 2012 when Brown was still on the Council; he lost his re-election race that November after his campaign treasurer allegedly pilfered more than $100,000 from his war chest.

“I should have revisited the culture of corruption rampant in our city,” Brown, wearing a pinstriped suit and purple necktie, told Roberts. “At this time, I’m the one who caused the pain.”

The prosecution, led by Assistant US Attorneys Michael Atkinson and David Last, described Brown as a man who gave little regard for the corruption that surrounded him during his time on the Council.

Brown took his first bribe just weeks after former Council member Harry Thomas, Jr. was sentenced to more than three years in jail for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in city funds earmarked for youth development.

But the figure who shadowed over Brown’s case the most is Jeffrey Thompson, the DC businesman who in March pleaded guilty to being the mastermind behind numerous off-the-books campaigns contributions to local and national politicians, including Brown on multiple occasions. (And, most famously, on behalf of Mayor Vince Gray.)

Brown’s lead attorney, Reid Weingarten, said he wouldn’t bog down the court with “Oedipal psychobabble,” but proceeded to couch his client’s downfall as an extended consequence of the 1996 death of his father, US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, a longtime fixture in District politics.

“Michael has never fully come to terms with his father’s death,” Weingarten said. Weingarten said Brown’s plan to cope with the loss was to achieve in politics what his father had never done—be elected to office.

“Michael entered into the world of Uncle Earl,” Weingarten said, referring to the nickname Thompson asked his beneficiaries to call him. But rather than be Thompson’s unwitting victim, prosecutors said Brown was “all-in” on corruption during his political career.

Brown helped prosecutors get Thompson’s conviction, but his cooperation was far from satisfactory. Although Brown was up-front when he was arrested last year that he took $20,000 from Thompson in a 2007 race for the Ward 4 Council seat, now held by Democratic mayoral nominee Muriel Bowser, it was another six months before Brown told prosecutors Thompson gave $125,000 to his successful 2008 run and even longer until authorities learned Thompson paid off Brown to drop out of the 2006 mayoral race. Prosecutors described Brown’s trajectory as a “crime creep,” reaching back to a 1997 misdemeanor conviction when he made an illegal campagn donation.”

In court papers, Brown’s team argued that he took the money to afford his mortgage, health care for his ailing mother, his children’s education, and other costs of living. But prosecutors replied by saying Brown used the money to pay for a lavish, unaffordable lifestyle.

“The story of broke-down Michael Brown does not hold up,” Atkinson said. “The problem was not a lack of money. The problem was more money.”

Brown declined to answer any questions when he exited the courthouse for a waiting Lincoln Navigator, but Weingarten said District politics has seen the likely end of the Brown family’s involvement.

“Michael Brown is done in public life,” Weingarten said. “That is for sure.”

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Ford Recalls Nearly 1.4 Million Vehicles In N. America

Ford Motor Co said on Thursday it is recalling 1.39 million SUVs and sedans in North America, most for the possible loss of power steering.

This undated handout photo provided by the Ford Motor Company shows the 2009 Ford Escape.

About 1.186 million of the vehicles Ford said it is recalling are in the United States. That figure is only 2,200 shy of the total number of vehicles that Ford recalled in the United States during all of last year.

Automakers are giving heightened scrutiny to safety issues in the wake of General Motors Co's ongoing safety crisis that began with an ignition-switch issue in older-model cars.

So far this year, GM has recalled 15.8 million vehicles worldwide.

Analyst Karl Brauer of Kelley Blue Book said Ford's spate of recalls on Thursday may be "driven by the heightened sense of concern all automakers are feeling right now, though we'll likely never know for sure."

Brauer added that there have been so many recalls since February when GM issued its first ignition-switch recall that the actions have become "sort of background white noise for consumers."

Ford said it will recall 195,527 Explorer SUVs in North America from the 2011 to 2013 model years and 915,216 Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner SUVs from model years 2008 to 2011 on power steering issues.

In addition, it will recall nearly 200,000 Taurus sedans in North America from the 2010 to 2014 model years on a corrosion issue.

Finally, Ford is also recalling 82,576 sedans with floor mats that may interfere with the operation of accelerator pedals. The floor mats were put in 2006 to 2011 model year Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan and Lincoln Zephyr and MKZ sedans.

The loss of power steering can increase the risk of a crash when vehicles are traveling at lower rates of speed.

U.S. regulators have received consumer reports of six injuries and five crashes related to the Escape and Mariner models, Ford said.

As of mid-April, Ford said it was aware of 15 accidents including two minor injuries believed to be related to the loss of power steering in Explorer SUVs. The accidents all involved vehicles moving at lower speeds, Ford said.

In cold-weather U.S. states and Canadian provinces where road salt is used, corrosion can affect license plate lamps which in turn may cause a short circuit that could start a fire, Ford said. A Ford spokeswoman said the company is aware of 18 consumer reports of fires believed to be associated with this condition.

Ford did not say how much the recall campaigns are expected to cost. For the Mercury Mariner and Ford Escape recalls, dealers are to be notified on Thursday and letters to all affected U.S. owners will be sent by July 25, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.

There may be additional vehicles included in the recall campaigns outside of North America, Ford said. 

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Support falters as Shinseki fights for his job

Support for embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki eroded quickly Thursday, especially among congressional Democrats facing tough re-election campaigns, even as Shinseki continued to fight for his job amid allegations of delayed medical care and misconduct at VA facilities nationwide.

This May 15, 2014, file photo shows Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Shinseki spoke privately with lawmakers and met with nearly two dozen veterans groups, assuring them that he takes the reports seriously and is moving swiftly to fix problems. On Friday, he is to address the National Coalition on Homeless Veterans, outlining his plans for corrections.

A federal investigation of operations in the troubled Phoenix VA Health Care System found that about 1,700 veterans in need of care were "at risk of being lost or forgotten" after being kept off an official waiting list. While initially focused on Phoenix, the investigation described Wednesday by the VA Department's inspector general found broad and deep-seated problems in the sprawling health care system, which provides medical care to about 6.5 million veterans annually.

The interim report confirmed earlier allegations of excessive waiting times for care in Phoenix, with an average 115-day wait for a first appointment for those on the waiting list — nearly five times as long as the 24-day average the hospital had reported.

House Speaker John Boehner and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said they were reserving judgment about Shinseki. But with the situation threatening to affect congressional elections in November, the chorus of lawmakers calling for his departure grew by the hour.

Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and New Mexico's Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich all urged Shinseki to step aside. Eleven Senate Democrats have called for Shinseki's resignation since Wednesday, when the VA inspector general report came out. All but Heinrich are on the ballot this fall.

White House press secretary Jay Carney declined to say whether President Barack Obama still has full confidence in Shinseki, who has led the VA since the start of the Obama administration. The president is waiting for a full investigation into the VA before deciding who should be held accountable, Carney said.

Rep. Steve Israel, the New York Democrat who chairs the party's campaign committee in the House, called for a criminal investigation of the department by the Justice Department and said of Shinseki, "If his resignation is what it takes to fix the problem, then yes, he should resign."

And Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, said that he respects Shinseki, a former four-star Army general who served in Vietnam but that the IG's report "does really move us closer to that point where we have to question his leadership." He said, "If this is what I think it is, it could mean we need new leadership."
The American Legion and dozens of Republicans have called for Shinseki to resign, including Jeff Miller of Florida, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, and Richard Burr of North Carolina, senior Republican on the Senate veterans panel. Arizona's two Republican senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, also have called for Shinseki to step down.

The congressional calls for Shinseki's resignation were mixed with criticism of a bonus system at the VA that has rewarded officials for meeting performance targets that proved to be unreasonable, including a maximum two-week waiting period for first-time appointments.

VA guidelines say veterans should be seen within 14 days of their desired date for a primary care appointment. Lawmakers have called that target unrealistic and said basing employee bonuses and pay raises on it is outrageous. The target encourages employees to "game" the appointment system in order to collect bonuses based on on-time performance, lawmakers from both parties said at a hearing late Wednesday on the VA mess.

"The last time I saw an example of this was Enron," said Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas. "We all know what happened at Enron ... a flawed bonus system (was) driving bad behavior."

Enron, a now-defunct energy giant, tinkered with its books to boost corporate income while hiding underlying problems and bad deals.

At the VA, the inspector general described a process in which schedulers ignored the date that a provider or veteran wanted for an appointment. Instead, the scheduler selected the next available appointment and used that as the baseline, resulting in a false zero-day wait time.

Thomas Lynch, an administrator at the Veterans Health Administration, an arm of the VA, said at the hearing that the bonus system had had an unintended negative effect.

"Our performance measures have become our goals, not tools to help us understand where we needed to invest resources," he told the House Veterans Affairs Committee. "We undermined the integrity of our data."

A VA official said Shinseki met with leaders of 23 military and veterans service organizations. Shinseki told the groups that the findings in the IG report were "reprehensible," and said he has directed the agency to immediately contact each of the 1,700 veterans waiting for primary care appointments in Phoenix, the official said.

Shinseki is expected to release results as soon as Friday of a system-wide audit of scheduling policy and practices.

House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla. is joined by Republican members and veterans in calling for reforms in the wake of allegations of gross mismanagement and misconduct at Veterans Administration hospitals possibly leading to patient deaths, Thursday, May 29, 2014, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. Earlier, House Speaker John Boehner said he isn't ready to join other members of Congress who say Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki should resign over the scandal.

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