Thank you very much. Looking forward to this. Thanks for joining us. Last may, last may day in fact so last may 1st the governor of oregon stood before a cheering, chanting group of very excited supporters and he waved a bill in the air that had just passed the Oregon Senate and had just passed the oregon house and passed by a comfortable margin and governor kit hopper was in favor of it and there to sign it in front of this and big very excited and happy crowd and the governor signed that bill and he waved it in the air and it did not become law. And that is because of this man. Many people have neck and shoulder tension and they dont know why. Well, i can tell you this from much experience, there are good reasons why they have neck and shoulder tension and they would be better off without it and so what im going to do is do this little exercise for you and its purpose that man is the most prolific
funder of conservative causes in the great state of oregon. Every states got one. This is oregons. The bill that the Oregon Legislature and governor passed and signed this time last year would have given drivers license to any oregon resident even if you could not prove that you were in this country legally and this conservative zillion air lauren parks, he decided he was against that and so he personally funded an opposition effort. He permanently put up 70 of the money that it cost to get that law put up for a referendum. And so it would have become law january of this year. Would already be law and didnt instead on the ballot this november because this one guy paid for the services of all the paid signature gatherers that it took in order to get that law delayed by getting it put on the ballot. Without him, this thing would be law already. With him, its not law. At least not yet. Mr. Parks, his name is lauren parks made his fortune in medical devices including doppler flow ultrasound machines and also according to the Las Vegas Reviewjournal, quote, a
device called the plethlismoen graph which was developed in the 1900s and used in some Law Enforcement and psychological experiments to measure the arousal of sex offenders. More than a hobby in being a amateur hypnotherapist and specifically sex hypnotherapist. This is about women and sexual guilt. Mr. Parks claims to be able to cure people of basically anything you can think of that has any remote relationship to sex and if you peruse the dozens of selfhelp and hypnotherapy videos he uploaded to youtube you would find he thinks everything is related to sex including his very baroque and insistent theories on weight loss. Video about being fat and its aimed at women because thats where i have the experience. I dont have experience with men. Maybe itll work. I dont know. But at any rate, there are a multitude of reasons why women are fat. A long time ago back in the 80s when i was doing large groups of people using idiomotor finger signaling, we came up with a bunch of reasons that women who were overweight gave for their being fat. Youd be surprised at what some of them were. But ill tell you this choose one of those things that came to mind to be disconnected just have it in your mind, not a bump of them, just one and when i
sound the budder and say disconnect, it will disconnect all of the causes of that habit and perhaps youll end up losing weight. [ buzzer ] disconnect. [ buzzer ] disconnect. Thats him hypnotizing you on youtube. Mr. Parks is a very prolific donor to causes in oregon, the mother of all political donors in oregon and gives more money than everybody else according to people who study conservative politics in oregon but his sideline interests and his past do make him an awkward donor for conservative candidates and conservative causes. This is from that same recent profile in the Las Vegas Review journal. He admits hes been sued a number of times usually he says by women who dont want me to leave. One female employee sued him he said even after she signed a contract that stipulated she would have sexual relations with hill during business travels. Quote, she enjoyed our trips so much and then she turned around and said she didnt want to do it, park said. Why would someone who signed a contract do that . After those remarks and that apparently true history of his own time in court, one republican candidate for the oregon house this year returned a 30,000 donation that lauren parks had given him. This guy is running for a house seat in northeastern oregon. That primary is tomorrow so we will see if hes able to overcome having had to give back a big 30,000 donation that late in the game. But generally do not think it is appreciated broadly enough just how weird Oregon Republican politics have gotten, oregon has its primary tomorrow. Republicans have been very excited about running a campaign against incumbent democratic u. S. Senator jeff merkley. But if were honest, i have to tell you, covering the primary, the republican primary for that senate seat which is tomorrow
has been like sitting in a dusking booth at a pitchers convention. Every time you think you get your bearings, boom, there you go in the tank like every time you go to check out a new news psych walthall this primary its something new. Theres lauren parks, the amateur sex hypnotherapist with contracts to have sex with him on business travels. He is a zillionaire who is substantially funded a lot of conservative causes in oregon but right now hes funning a pac supporting one of the two republican candidates in the Senate Campaign tomorrow. Hes supporting monica wehby. The other person substantiallily funding that same pac has been widely reported to be monica wehbys boyfriend. One issue with that is anybodys boyfriend commingling with disconnect, disconnect with that guy. Thats just me. It is a free country, the other issue is more pedestrian and specific. Candidates are supposed to be totally legally forbidden from
coordinating anything with pacs that support them. Theres supposed to be no contact between the candidate and the pac supporting them including the people who fund that pac. Its very hard to say theres no contact between you and somebody you are dating. Right . If monica wehby is the candidate in a romantic relationship with one of the main funders of this pac how can you have no coordination and raised all kinds of questions whether this pac is operating legally if there is close coordination of some kind between the people in that pac and candidate herself. That led, in fact, to the Democratic Party in oregon filing a complaint about that pacs spending on this candidates behalf. Since then, though, in the closing days of this primary in oregon just this past friday, oregon and everybody else in the world learned in a very blunt and unexpected way that actually the candidate, monica wehby and the supposed boyfriend funding the pac, they are apparently no longer in a relationship. They used to be but they have
broken up and the way everybody found out about that was when politico on friday morning published the Police Report from when he called the police on her accusing her of stalking him and averaging the police to please come throw her out of his house because they were having a bad breakup and she was harassing him and she would not leave him alone. That does solve some of the worries about there being too much contact between the candidate and the guy funding the pac. But now theres also this other issue of who is leaking that Police Report four days before the primary and then later that same day also leaking the 911 call to the oregon press and the National Press just days ahead of this primary and then today, one day ahead of the primary the oregonian published another Police Report this time not from the exboyfriend but exhusband of the candidate and the report reflecting her exhusband called the police to their home during their divorce and accuse the her of ongoing
harassment of him. So the first Police Report four days before the primary and the 911 call later that day. The second Police Report one day before the primary. And the drama and the twists and turns and whatever is going on in Oregon Republican politics would be weird enough if that was just it, but that doesnt even start to touch the cast of characters involved here. Because outside of the hobbyist sex hypnotherapist and not the boyfriend anymore pac the other pac supporting the monica wehby candidacy is funded substantially by this guy, he just got a big splashy spread in National Journal magazine as the future of super pacs. This is him apparently posing with models on a hay bale from an out of take of an video posted at his winery website showing himself its a parody of that robin i dont know its just anyway
okay, his name is john jordan. He runs a winery. Very rich guy, conservative guy, republican donor and he lives in california. He doesnt live in oregon, doesnt appear to very any connection to oregon. What so doing weighing in with huge bucket loads of money in the senate race . Oregon republican politics, turns out, theyre just kind of like that because on the other side, the guy was running against monica wehby in tomorrows primary a day named jason conger has his own random out of state disinterested surveillancian their helping them, as well, the pac funder on the other side tomorrow is a Hedge Fund Guy from new york who has decided that the outcome of the Oregon Republican Senate Primary is apparently worst some of his hedge fund bucks for some reason and this is the thing in oregon. Oregon of all places for some reason attracts this. Four years ago you may remember we took notice of a mysterious well funded out of nowhere
challenge to a democratic incumbent named Peter Defazio. Forgive me but its sort of perennial crank candidate who lived on a compound they called his own Science Institute who sent out newsletters saying things like hiv doesnt really cause aids and anybody who is hiv positive shouldnt take their hiv drugs, he says that radiation is good for you and we should in fact consider sprinkling radiation over the entire United States and there were parks and backyards and stuff that would help everybodys health. Yeah, that candidate was mysteriously running a campaign with super slick flyers and well put together ads and a really professionallooking operation against Peter Defazio. And just none of it made sense. It wasnt like this guy was a tea partyer who was a little too conservative for the district or even that he was a rand Paul Ron Paul guy who want the us to have gold instead of paper money. It wasnt like that normal and well understood breed of republican out thereness. This guy wants to sprinkle radiation across the country so kids will play in it and get healthy. Radiation t made no sense at all that he was able to run this campaign against Peter Defazio at the level that he was running it until Peter Defazio himself figured out that there was randomly a new York Hedge Fund republican zillion their who decided from three time zone as way on the complete opposite side of the country with no relationship to oregon politics whatsoever and no apparent vested interest in that congressional race that he was going to fund art robinsons selfdeclared superscientist to run against Peter Defazio and so that inexplicable new york zillionaire gave art all that money to run a big campaign against Peter Defazio and who knows why, and robinson did not beat Peter Defazio and reached out to him earlier this month to see if he is still funding art. We did not hear back but it does not seem like he is anymore. At least not yet but even after
losing to Peter Defazio art robinson did not go away. He went on to become the chairman of the Oregon Republican party. That is his current job and he is now running for Congress City against Peter Defazio apparently without the zillionaire hedge funder helping him out this time and while art robinson is running for congress this time, he is also simultaneously sending out thousands of mailers that look like this. Accepting out these mailers all across oregon asking people to please send him jars of their urine. Because he wants your urine for science or for his version of science. He wants you to send him your urine for five years. Its like a newsletter in reverse. The worlds worst newsletter made of urine that you have to send to art robinson, chairman of the Oregon Republican party, yes. But, again, his apparently disinterested hedge funder in new york is not to be confused
with the other apparently disinterested hedge funder in new york whos funding the other republican candidate in oregon and they are not to be confused with the amateur sex hypnotherapist guy funding the pac, funding the other Republican Senate candidate and who is very against drivers licenses and his is the same pac with the guy who called the police accusing the now candidate of stalking and the Police Report that mysteriously got leaked to the press four days before the primary. Just as or gonians should be headed to the polling trying to figure out if they want any of these people to be their statewide elected officials. No republican has won statewide elected office in the state of oregon since 2002 as best as i can tell. But the Beltway Press keeps reporting on the merkley reelection race in oregon as if republicans, you know, got a real shot of pulling this off in oregon, you know what, take a closer look at what is actually going on in oregon. There are a lot of interesting Republican Partys in this country and having interesting, interesting, interesting fights among themselves. There are a lost interesting things going on in local and state republican parties but there is not one anywhere in this country more bizarre than
what is happening in the great state of oregon right now. I defy you to find me a weirder one. Joining us now is jim moore a political scientist in oregon. Professor, thank you very much for being here. Its great to be with you. Am i being unfair . Are there states out there that are weirder than oregon and oregon is more normal than it seems in terms of its republican politics right now. Well, lets put it this way, without a tea Party Faction thats strong at all, we are right up there with everybody else in terms of strange things and its been going on like this for the best part of 25 or 30 years. Well, i can can understand there being fits and starts of not just sort of impotence at state levels but in leads to a power vacuum and end up with some sort of spikes in different parties taking control. How has it been so sustainably weird and how does somebody like art robinson not get turfed out of the party when they realize who he is and end up being in
charge . In oregon because we have not had a statewide elected republican since gordon smith our u. S. Senator was defeated six years ago by jeff merkley and so in oregon, the chair of the Republican Party becomes in effect the de facto representative of all republicans. Its like theyre the governor in waiting and theres always a fight about what that chair of the Republican Party ought to be. Should it be somebody who is kind of a pure republican whose social conservative wants to cut all tax, all those kinds of things. Those people get elected as the chair and then they cant raise money and they cant recruit candidates. Ah. So then the party goes the other way and finds a moderate who can raise money and recruit candidates but theyre not ideologically pure and the party
gets rid of them after a term of being the chair so were on the more ideologically pure side right now ainge the party is suffering because of that. In terms of the funders of these people funding pacs and have been behind robinsons candidacy on both sides of the Senate Primary tomorrow, why is it that oregon seeps to attract individual donors from across the country who arent involved in any other Political Races or maybe just one here or there, you really picked up some strays here and there. Is there something specific about oregon causing that . Well, lets start with lauren parks. Lauren parks ha been giving money in a big way for over 20 years but the money he gave throughout the 1990s into the 2000s was for ballot measures. Oregon is one place where its easy to get measures on the ballot. You can get big money going for them and you can change state law and he funded a lot of things for instance sentencing guideline kinds of thing, things that had to do with what gay rights ought to be, you know, all sorts of stuff out there. He was successful on a few of them. But not very many of them. But because he wasnt successful, in the past four or five years he switched towards candidates and thats what were seeing right now. Hes going especially for the
congressional candidates. Hes also as you said, hes going for some of the state legislative candidates, havent gotten any elected but he said thats how i can change policy going with candidates rather than the ballot measures. The other guy, Hedge Fund People you were talking about, the winery guy, wow, its clear that they are looking at oregon as a place where their relatively small for big bucks, you know, this is not california, you can spend a million or two here and make a big difference in a campaign if you were in california or new york or someplace like that you wouldnt even be noticed so oregon is a place where people see an opportunity because they perceive that in this case jeff merkley is weak and so they see an opportunity to get their ideas out there and to get their candidates out there and, so, you know, there we go. Oregon republican primaries are becoming a playground for billionaire dilettantes. Wow. Im absolutely. I envy you the chance to see it up close every day. Jim moore, political professor. Thanks for being here. Youre welcome. Big primary day tomorrow particularly in the great state of georgia. But also a really, really big day tomorrow for the highest technically the highest ranking republican in the whole country. Lots of election news and more still to come tonight, stay with us. Othbrus s are the same. Oralb prohealth toothbrushes have crisscross bristles that remove up to 90 of hard to reach plaque. Feel the difference. Oralb, trust the brand more dentists and hygienists use. Oralb. At oralb, we take pride because we believe in building something. Something to better someone. To better you. To better america. Oralb. Made in the usa. And here. But what about here . [ female announcer ] neutrogena® visibly even daily moisturizer with a clinically proven soy complex. It diminishes the look of dark spots in 4 short weeks. And just like that your skin will look radiant and more even. Even from here. [ female announcer ] visibly even moisturizer and new bb cream. From neutrogena®. Change the status quo. I dont know. The answer is no. Yes, jim, because in the problem with senator mcconnell, isnt that hes ineffective. Hes ineffective because hes in the minority. Absolutely not. We need new leadership with new people there and that means we need new leadership in the leadership too. I think this is not really simply a yes or no answer, jim. That was from the Republican Senate candidates debate in georgia. Only one of the seven running said if hes elected to the senate he would vote for Mitch Mcconnell to stay in chief justice the Republican Party and the man who said that, no offense is one of the candidates who has zero chance of winning tomorrow. The other six either said though or they wouldnt say. Republicans are also running for national in oklahoma and in nebraska and in louisiana all while refusing to say if theyll vote for mcconnell to stay in charge. So even when Mitch Mcconnell likely wins this primary hes still going to have a hard day because he knows thats head of
them. That georgia race tomorrow, though, that is going to be a really fascinating one. There is genuine suspense there in georgia and the stakes are high. Theres this rule they almost never talk about, a constitutional rule that says you cannot hold on to your house seat and run for the senate at the same time. So its a particular leap of faith for a member of the house to commit to run for senate. You have to give up your day job in order to run. You cant keep your seat if you want to run for senate. But three members of the house from georgia did that, tried to get the senate seat, Jack Kingston gave it up and phil gingrey and paul brown gave up his house seat and gave up seats to run for senate tomorrow in georgia. And none of them is expected to win. Jack kingston might have a shot of make night a runoff if hes a top two finisher maybe but the other two if things go as expected tomorrow they are not only going to be out of luck, they are going to be out of a job. Do you remember the kerfuffle about the countrys highest profile Breast Cancer charity trying to cut itself off from its relationship with planned parenthood . Remember that. Holy cow did that make people mad. So much so that the susan g. Komen Breast Cancer foundation reversed the decision to cut off planned parenthood after four days. The fundraising plummeted, a number of their staffers including eventually the founder and ceo of the organization quit. The group still hasnt quite recovered two years later. That whole disaster was the brainchild of this person, who is another one of the real contenders for that seat tomorrow. Her name is karen handel rupping in part on the basis of that disastrous decision she made at komen. Shes got endorsements from Rick Santorum and sarah palin but heading into tomorrows voting, Jack Kingston has an endorsement from a pop Fox News Channel host named sean hannity and yet another one of the contenders david perdue, businessman, cousin of the last governor also named purdue, he has an endorsement from herman cain because, yes, one of the things
that happens now in our country people seek out and get the endorsement of herman when theyre running for the United States senate but with this split ticket, right, with three different candidates in this primary tomorrow endorsed by these three different conservative brands on legs, whats going to happen tomorrow in georgia . Theres seven people in that primary, three of them gave up house seats to run. Five considered to be contenders. In georgia tomorrow it is that rarest of all things in our politics these days. It is a legitimately open question as to what is going to happen in that primary. Turnout is expected to be squat frankly but whoever does turn out will see the polls close at 7 00 p. M. Tomorrow and theyll have results for you here tomorrow night. Super tuesday. Not a real super tuesday. Still very exciting. The chicago cubs have not won baseballs world series since 1908 and the lifetimes of almost everyone alive the cubs have never won. Now imagine the cubs winning not just one world series 0 break the drought but winning year after year after year after year and never losing that is what is currently happening on one side of a huge important Public Policy issue, the side that forever never won anything ever now all of a sudden they never lose and chocked up another win, a revolution in progress and that story is ahead. Stay with us. If the Death Penalty werent so secret, if it was all
ohoh, oh, oh, la, lala, lala, lala nanana, nanananana some things just go together, like auto and home insurance. Bundle them together at progressive, and you save big on both. Oh, ohoh, oh, oh hey, its me [ whistles ] and theres my dog [gasps] theres my steps i should stop talking. Perfectly paired savings. Now, thats progressive. If the Death Penalty werent so secret, if it was all conducted out in the open where everybody could see it do you think we would have fewer executions this this country or more executions . Part of me likes to think we can
only be the last western country on earth that still has the Death Penalty because we dont see it, because its so shielded from public view. If it wasnt wed join the west rest of the western world and stop doing it. Part of me likes to see that but then you see the historical footage this. Is what it looked like at the last public execution in the United States. In owens borough, kentucky, august 1936, hundreds or thousands of people turned out. There were hanging parties. The contemptuous press says the bars with full all day with people getting drunk and celebrating. They were not there to watch a man slowly strangle to death when the rope he was hanged from did not break his neck. When he fell from the gallows and just slowly died as he hung there over a period of 16 1 2 minutes. Quote, a few persons near the gallows grabbed bits of the hood as souvenirs after the two physicians pronounced him dead. Kentucky was the last tate to outlaw public executions. After that Massive Party in the streets in owensborough 1936 the state decided to do away with them joining the rest of the country in concluding that mass executions in public were no longer acceptable. That standards of decency had evolved past making a huge stadiumstyle spectacle of the Death Penalty. Since then, executions carried out by the state as opposed to those carry out by lynch mobs state executions were all moved indoors and away from general public view. What you see here, reporters reading out what they saw while witnessing executions, reporters have been allowed in to witness executions in order to tell the public what happens, but general members of the public dont see it anymore. We dont see pictures of it the. We dont see videotape, we dont see anything. We get read out or written out descriptions. Would it change anything about how we feel about the Death Penalty in this country if we did see it . And if so, would it be a step back toward the blood lusting mobs getting drunk and celebrating or the private
pornographic enthusiasm of people enjoying a snuff film or would it put trust in the other selection and make the public disapprove of killing prisoners and put pressure on lawmakers to stop doing it . Three weeks ago a prisoner in the state of oklahoma survived his execution, at least for awhile when the warden in the corrections director realized they botched the intravenous line with a prisoner neither dead or unconscious and writhing in pain they pulled the blinds to block off the view of the witnesses, they called off the execution. They still wont say if they tried to revive him behind those close blinds after they said they were stopping their efforts to kill him but 43 minutes into it they do say that he died of a heart attack. There was no protocol in oklahoma for what to do if the prisoner survives your attempts to kill him. And if you want to try to stop killing him. No state has that protocol as far as we know. But now the country is poised to
do its first execution since what happened in oklahoma. Its scheduled for a minute after midnight tomorrow night and in missouri that mans lawyers is trying to hit a pause button in a motion they argue until the botched execution in oklahoma on april 29th, the possibility of a prisoner surviving an execution seemed perhaps remote. Now the possibility of a failed execution is plain. The mans lawyers have further argued that this next execution, the first planned execution since oklahoma, theyve argued that it should be videotaped. They want it videotaped for evidence. They have concerns about the drugs being used the drug excuse me being used which is apparently made at a Compounding Pharmacy in the state Wont Disclose the use of it. They have concerns about tumors that the condemned man suffers from which they say may affect the way the drugs work on him in the Execution Chamber. The state has already twice altered its planned protocol for
the execution to account for the mans medical condition. So the first execution after what happened in oklahoma is missouri trying to do it in a way thats its never been done before with drugs from a seek source. The mans lawyer say they want it videotaped. That doesnt happen in this country but want it dong for this one and say if missouri officials are confident enough to execute Russell Bucklew they should be confident enough to videotape it. It is time to raise the curtain on lethal injections so says cheryl pilate, a lawyer for him and miss pilot joins us now from missouri. Thanks for being with us tonight. I appreciate your time. Thank you for inviting me on your show. Well, first let me ask you the status of your motions and appeals at this point. Is the execution still at this point planned to go forward tomorrow night. The execution is still planned to go forward. Were actually at a difficult point. We got a denial from the Federal District court this afternoon on a variety of our constitutional claims under eighth amendment as well as the first and the 14th amendment, and we are now planning to go straight to
eighth Circuit Court of appeals and if deny there had seek review in the United States supreme court. Why specifically did you ask for the execution to be videotaped . Why would that be valuable obviously if it was at that point it would be where your client was going to be killed. I think we need an accurate record that is not subject to witness bias or misrecollections or failure to perceive or not remembering or any of the other things that may affect a witness ability to report. I think we need an accurate record of what goes on inside the Execution Chamber and if executions are going to be done in our name as a society i think we as a society have a right to know what goes on in there. There is no more potent expression of any states power
than its ability to extinguish the lie of one of its citizens and i think its in that act that we most need transparency and accountability. And a good way to begin with that is to tape the execution. Do you think there is a reasonable interest in keeping executions from being performed as they once were for public consumption . Im very sympathetic to your argument and look back at the historical record and think about the snuff films that exist of executions an the world and see the way theyre treated. I just wonder, are you risking that if mr. Bucklews death was taped and then that was made public or leaked. Well, obviously a court could control the the circulation of the tape and say who may have it or who may not if its done for a particular case. But were not talking about hanging, you know, in the Public Square or anything like that. Were talking about a very extreme act committed in our
name often on people who have either mental defects or in my clients case physical problems and i just think the public has a need and, frankly, a right to see what is being done in their name. My client has a severe and lifelong condition that causes the entire right side of his head and his neck and throat to be filled with unstable vascular tumors and the truth is that the state cant say for certain what is going to happen if hes executed tomorrow. Those tumors are very unstable in his throat. They are friable. It means they rupture easily. They bleed if theyre touched. Cheryl pilate attorney for Russell Bucklew. I imagine the next 24 hours will inintense. Thanks for taking time to help us understand what youre doing. Thank you. Thank you. Lots ahead. Stay with us tonight. .
cause Beautiful Skin goes with everything. [ female announcer ] aveeno® daily moisturizing lotion has active naturals® oat with five vitalutrients naturally found in healthy skin. Where do i wear aveeno® . Everywhere. Aveeno® daily moisturizing lotion. And try the body wash too. Aveeno®. Naturally beautiful results™. This picture was taken on march 3rd, 2004 outside the county Office Building in multnomah. It had gone rogue in 2004 and announced they would start giving out marriage licenses to samesex couples. Only there in that county not around the rest of the state and people lined up around the building march 2004 and you could find picketers out there that day picketing against the idea of samesex rights including this guy with his sign about sin and then pointing right at him is this other sign that says dont mind my loudmouth boyfriend. Today, ten years after that they lined up in against in oregon but not just in that one county because today in oregon a federal judge issued a progay marriage ruling for oregon that was the 12th consecutive such ruling from a federal judge since the big u. S. Supreme court case last year that apparently paved the way for equal marriage rights from sea to shining sea. In his di sent from that ruling last year Antonin Scalia predicted this would happen. Gay couples would soon get the right to marry everywhere. He did not mean it in a good way when he said it but in case after case after case he has been right, red state, blue side, Piggly Wiggly supermarket
it is happening everywhere across the country. And then pointing right at him is this other sign that says dont mind my loudmouthed boyfriend. Well, today ten years after that they lined up again in oregon but this time not just in that one county because today in oregon a federal judge issued a progay marriage ruling for oregon that was the 12th consecutive such ruling from a federal judge since the big u. S. Supreme court case last year that apparently paved the way for equal marriage rights from
if you go to the white house website and you go up to the dropdown menu at the top of it where it says briefing room, one of the things i do when im starting my news reading for the day is i go to statements and releases on the white house web page, and it is usually really boring. But that is only because it is also really thorough. So like today theres a release on the president awarding the medal of honor, description of the delegation that will be sent to the inauguration of the president of el salvador. Theres a letter of congress to the president about the stabilization of iraq. A just the facts transcript of a briefing of a senior official on the purpose of the Vice President and dr. Jill bidens trip to romania and cyprus. Its everything. Statements and releases is everything that happens at the white house every day. And some of it is momentous stuff. Like 348d of honor is a momentous thing. But a lot of it is just the workaday minutia of running the giant federal government. Anywhere from 3 to 20 statements and releases put out on any given workday at the white house. You can always find them right there. And this statement that the white house released on may 1st, this is the prototypical boring announcement thats not going to make any news. Its a long list of 13 people, none of whom youve ever heard of, whom the president intends to nominate to these Key Administration posts that you mostly have not heard of either. And this is just very easily skipped. It is just as boring as it looks. But that superdry announcement ended up being really, really important to a really big story in the news right now. Late last week you might have seen some big headlines that popped about the ongoing troubles and recriminations at the veterans administration. That big news followed the Senate Hearing on thursday, where va secretary Eric Shinseki got grilled over Va Health Centers not only having long wait times to get doctors appointments but those Va Health Centers also being found to have
workarounds and tricks and second sets of books to make it look like those long wait times didnt exist. And weve been reporting repeatedly on this show that this type of problem has happened with Va Health Care before. As va has been trying to reduce its wait times, they have created all these incentives to make their employees make the wait times not look as bad as they are. And those incentives have created systems by which employees make it look not so bad, but its still really bad. This has happened before. This recent round of criticism. The newest revelations that this type of thing is happening even now. They started last month in phoenix before they ended up spreading all across the country. And at that initial site in phoenix the Inspector Generals Office asked va secretary Eric Shinseki to please suspend the director of the whole Va Medical Center in phoenix while the Inspector General investigation went forward. That happened on may 1st. Shinseki suspended that director. And at shinseki hearing on thursday the big dramatic moment in the whole thing was when senators sat there in the hearing room and told the secretary that four days after he suspended that health chief one of his own top executives at his own agency, in fact the guy sitting right next to him during his testimony, had publicly criticized and undermined the va secretarys decision to suspend that facility chief in phoenix. On may 1 you publicly stated that you had removed miss hellman as the medical director. On may 5th dr. Petzel conducted a Conference Call with all visiting directors, all medical directors and the chief of staffs, a rather large group. I have been told by source thats were on that call that during that call dr. Petzel made the statement that the removal of miss hellman was, i quote, political and that shes done nothing wrong. I was not aware of the phone call you referred to. And ill look into it. Ill look into whether i suspended someone and then four days later this guy sitting
right next to me who supposedly works for me got on a giant Conference Call and told everyone that my decision to suspend that person was purely political and was all bull pucky. Yeah, ill look into whether that happened. On thursday secretary shinseki said ill look into it. On friday that guy got fired. At least thats what it looked like from all the headlines the story made when the story popped. But check this out. Go back to that super boring list of the president s intention to nominate people youve never heard of to Key Administration posts youve never heard of. One of those job titles for which they announced they had found somebody new . Its that guys job title. Not even three weeks ago the white house announced who the new guy is whos getting that guys job. And look, back in september the va had already announced publicly that that guy was retiring. Grateful to dr. Petzel for his distinguished service, blah, blah, blah. So they announced his retirement in september. The white house announced his replacement 2 1 2 weeks ago. And now its big news that the guy is resigning . He may be resigning, but he was gone already. If this was the big accountability moment to make it look like they were canning somebody in charge because thats what everybody was clamoring for, this was not that moment. Fixing what is wrong with wait times and Record Keeping at the va, which is the Biggest Health care system in the country, that problem is not going to be fixed at a Senate Hearing, and it is not going to be fixed by expressions of outrage. I continue to think that it is not going to be fixed by firing any one person at headquarters, although there are definitely those who disagree with me on that. But presumably everyone can agree that the resignation of someone who has already resigned will do nothing to fix this problem and nothing to make it even look like the problem is being fixed or taken seriously. All that sort of thing does is make everybody involved in this look ridiculous in addition to already looking like failures for their inability to address this problem which is not new, which has been around for a very long time, and that the whistle has been blown on countless times before. That does it for us tonight. Good Tuesday Morning right now on first look. Primary tuesday. Key races across the country will set the tone for the midterms. Martial law. Thailands military tries to restore peace and stability. Cyberespionage. China fires back at the u. S. Over charges that members of the Chinese Military are stealing corporate secrets. Plus whats going on, people . Oh, my. How cool is that. Obama goes literally. Also, a cop is lucky to be alive after this brush with death. And a big night for maya rudolph. Hello, thanks for joining us. Im betty nguyen. The
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