I will be later this afternoon but I have until then to keep working. Looks like I can skip the pregame propaganda again. Talk about mind manipulation and the selling of conventional myths.
"AWOL soldiers, deserters were paid $16m; Commanders lax on paperwork, auditors report" by Brett Barrouquere | Associated Press, September 28, 2013
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Even as the Army faces shrinking budgets, an audit shows it paid out $16 million in paychecks over a 2½-year period to soldiers designated as AWOL or as deserters, the second time since 2006 the military has come under scrutiny for the error.
A memo issued at Fort Knox, Ky., found that the Army lacked sufficient controls to enforce policies and procedures for reporting deserters and absentee soldiers to cut off their pay and benefits immediately. The oversight was blamed primarily on a failure by commanders to fill out paperwork in a timely manner.
All the spying power, all the intelligence, and the things is still a f***ing me$$?
The payments from 2010 to 2012 represent only a fraction of the Army’s nearly $44 billion projected payroll for 2013, but auditors and a watchdog group derided the waste as government agencies grapple with the automatic federal spending cuts known as sequestration.
‘‘In this current environment of scarce resources, this is unacceptable,’’ auditors wrote in a July memo sent by the Department of Defense across the Army, including to the Deserter Information Point and Human Resources Command....
Related: Slow Saturday Special: U.S. Nuclear Watchdog Fa$t A$leep
All of a $udden the corporate welfare has to be tightened up!?
The message also directs commanders throughout the Army to follow up on all in-transit soldiers who do not arrive on their report dates and to place a strong emphasis on the status of absentee soldiers.
I thought they already did, as civilian we are conditioned to believe that is a huge crime and you could really be in trouble, but maybe the Army covers that up so it looks like the troops and the people are still on the war boat!
Auditors found that commanders weren’t filling out paperwork on absent soldiers in a timely manner, so the orders to stop pay weren’t being processed and absent soldiers were still being paid.
C'mon, folks, they stopped paying the soldiers. Someone was stealing the loot.
Of course, you are free to believe the daily dose of s*** shoveled at you by AmeriKan authority and the mouthpiece media. They got platefuls for you.
The latest audit comes as the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps are projected to slash $52 billion from the defense budget for the 2014 fiscal year under automatic spending cuts that kicked in March 1....
Representative C.A. ‘‘Dutch’’ Ruppersberger, a Maryland Democrat who was among four congressmen to request the 2006 audit, said he was troubled to see the problem persist particularly in light of the current financial and budget challenges the government faces.
Ruppersberger said Army leadership has assured him that corrective actions are being taken, including efforts to recoup the money paid.
Then you can find them to prosecute them for desertion and execute them as an example of freedom to the world.
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NSA can't find them?
Related: Following Zakheim and Pentagon trillions to Israel and 9-11
They sure didn't see that, did they?
At least the VA takes care of the vets:
"VA criticized for bonuses to doctors, dentists" by Steve Vogel | The Washington Post News Service, August 28, 2013
WASHINGTON — A newly released Government Accountability Office study says the Department of Veterans Affairs awarded bonuses to most of the doctors and dentists serving at its medical centers, despite lacking reasonable assurances that the added pay was linked to performance.
In 2011, about 80 percent of the Veterans Health Administration’s nearly 22,500 providers received about $150 million in performance pay.
Every medical provider who was eligible for performance pay at four medical centers the GAO visited received bonuses, including five who had actions taken against them related to their clinical performance, the GAO said.
The report says that VA policy does not specify in writing that the purpose of the bonuses is to improve health care and has not reviewed the goals set by medical centers.
Bonuses for doing their job?
‘‘This is irrefutable proof of what we’ve known for quite some time: That in many cases, VA’s performance pay and bonus system has absolutely nothing to do with performance,’’ said Representative Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican and chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, who has been critical of bonuses paid by the department. Miller called on VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki to conduct ‘‘a top-to-bottom review of VA’s performance appraisal system.’’
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Also see: 3 sought in beating of Navy veteran
"Study says suicides not linked to military service; Military researchers examined increase" by James Dao | New York Times, August 07, 2013
In the largest study of its kind, military medical researchers have concluded that deployments to war zones and exposure to combat were not major factors behind a significant increase in suicides among military personnel from 2001 to 2008, according to a paper published Tuesday.
If they admitted then they would face law$uits.
The study, published online by the Journal of the American Medical Association, corroborates what many military medical specialists have been saying for years: that the forces underlying the spike in military suicides are similar to those in the civilian world. They include mental illness, substance abuse, and financial and relationship problems.
“The findings from this study are not consistent with the assumption that specific deployment-related characteristics, such as length of deployment, number of deployments, or combat experiences, are directly associated with increased suicide risk,” the authors, based at the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego, wrote. “Instead, the risk factors associated with suicide in this military population are consistent with civilian populations, including male sex and mental disorders.”
But even as it points to nondeployment factors as paramount, the study underscores the complex interplay of war and the mental health of troops, even those who never left the United States. It suggests that the stresses of 12 years of war may have worn on all service members, creating work and travel demands far outstripping those borne by peacetime troops.
“Perhaps it’s not being deployed so much as being in a war during a high-stress time period,” Dr. Nancy Crum-Cianflone, the principal investigator for the Millennium Cohort Study, which provided much of the raw data for the study, said in an interview.
Critics of the study said that, because its analysis ended with data from 2008, it might underestimate the impact of multiple deployments and traumatic brain injuries caused by roadside bombs.
“Why would the authors repeatedly insist that there is no association between combat and suicide?” asked Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis, a psychiatrist and retired Army brigadier general. “The careful analysis of bad data generates poor evidence.”
We call it bullshit, but whatever.
Cynthia LeardMann, the lead author on the study, said the research team planned to update the study to include data through 2012.
But she expressed confidence that its bottom line conclusions would remain the same.
Yet even providers of mental health care and advocates for veterans who praised the quality of the study cautioned that its findings should not be oversimplified to suggest that deployment has nothing to do with suicide.
Those providers and advocates say that deployment can prompt or intensify problems that are direct causes of suicidal behavior, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance abuse.
All the pre$cription pharmaceuticals they are on a factor?
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Related: CDC Says Kill Yourself
It would $ave government the trouble, soldier.