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Despite of President Obama being ‘madder than hell,’ the resignation of Eric Shinseki and congressional probes, the Veterans Affairs Department says more than 57,000 patients are still waiting for initial medical appointments at VA hospitals and clinics 90 days or more after requesting them.

An additional 64,000 who enrolled in the VA health care system over the past 10 years have never had appointments. In total, more than 100,000 veterans are “experiencing long wait times” for health-care, an audit found.

The department says the audit of 731 VA hospitals and large outpatient clinics found that the agency’s complicated appointment process created confusion among scheduling clerks and supervisors. The audit says a 14-day goal for seeing first-time patients was unattainable given the growing demand among veterans for health care and poor planning.

The audit released Monday says 13 percent of VA schedulers reported supervisors telling them to falsify appointment dates to make waiting times seem shorter. About eight percent of schedulers said they used alternatives to an official electronic waiting list, often under pressure to make waiting times look more favorable.

The report comes less than two weeks after the VA inspector general’s office confirmed recent allegations that VA hospitals have falsified appointment records to hide treatment delays.

Last week, Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders and Senator John McCain reached agreement on the terms of a bill to help address some of the underlying problems that led to the treatment delays. More hearings are planned by both the U.S. House and Senate committees on veteran’s affairs in the coming days.

The VA scandal came to light late last year after Sam Foote, then a physician at the Phoenix VA Health Care System, filed a complaint with Office of Inspector General alleging that hospital administrators were falsifying patient access records to secure bonus pay and promotions. Investigators found that Phoenix VA leaders, who received cash awards for meeting goals, understated the delays faced by first-time patients.

Since then Shinseki and a top aide, Under Secretary Robert Petzel, resigned. Also Susan Bowers, the Southwest regional VA health care director, retired early, while Sharon Helman, director of the Phoenix VA medical center, was placed on administrative leave along with two top aides.

Newly crowned Miss USA Nia Sanchez is a fourth-degree black belt in taekwondo and says women should be able to defend themselves as a way to battle the problem of campus rape. The 24-year-old Las Vegas native said bringing awareness to the issue is very important.

Sanchez said women need to take it upon themselves to learn how to defend themselves. Sanchez lived for a time in a women’s shelter at a young age with her mother and at age eight took up taekwondo to learn self-defense and build her confidence.

As an adult, she has volunteered at women’s shelters, teaching residents how to defend themselves and teaching kids about “stranger danger.” Sanchez also said she was “so proud to bring the title of Miss USA back to Nevada.”

Sanchez beat out 50 other contestants from all the states and the District of Columbia Sunday night for the title of 63rd Miss USA. Sanchez will go on to represent the U.S. at the Miss Universe competition later this year.

Amazing! I can find all sorts of photos in the media of the two a-holes who killed two police officers and a bystander, yesterday in Las Vegas — but not one picture of Joseph Wilcox, the armed man killed by the female in this crime as he tried to stop the pairs rampage.

What an effing joke.

The battle over Nevada’s public land continues. Senator Dean Heller is warning the Obama administration against designating the Gold Butte region of Clark County as a national monument.

Gold Butte is the same area where Cliven Bundy and the Bureau of Land Management came face to face in a stand-off over grazing rights. The 400,000-acre region sits north and east of Lake Mead and across the border from Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

Heller wrote that another ‘land grab,’ “would not serve the area well.” He said it would escalate an already tense situation, “in a region of our state where tensions are already presently high.”

In February, Nevada Congresswoman Dina Titus wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to grant the Gold Butte area monument status as a way to protect wildlife habitat, mining artifacts and Indian petroglyphs. In her letter, Titus called Gold Butte “a national treasure in Southern Nevada.”

“I believe that the Gold Butte area of Southern Nevada merits consideration for National Monument designation,” Titus wrote.

That same month, a report by the Center for American Progress listed Gold Butte among “high-profile land conservation bills languishing in Congress,” along with the Pine Forest Range in Humboldt County. Nevada’s Senator Harry Reid and Congressman Steven Horsford introduced bills last year to name Gold Butte and the surrounding area for upgraded wilderness and conservation protections, though not national monument status.

Because of this, environmentalists believe presidential action is justified to protect natural wonders as Congress becomes gridlocked on natural resource bills. On May 21st, Obama designated 500,000 acres in the Organ Mountain-Desert Peaks region of southern New Mexico as a national monument.

Heller said it should be the Nevada delegation that works with local residents on a “grass-roots driven, public and transparent congressionally approved process for public lands designations.”

“Unlike my colleague who placed this request,” Heller wrote, “I am extremely concerned about the impact a unilateral designation will have on my state.”

Two Las Vegas police officers and a civilian were shot and killed by a pair of suspects armed with rifles before one of the shooters shot her partner dead before taking her own life.

The male and female shooters stormed a North Las Vegas Cici’s Pizza location Sunday morning, killing the two patrolmen as they ate lunch, before stealing their weapons and running to the Walmart across the street. Witnesses say the pair also shouted ‘tell the police the revolution has begun.’

The two suspects then shot a bystander to death who is believed to have been carrying a concealed firearm and had opened fire on them as they ran into the Walmart. The bystander’s body was found just inside the front door to the store.

The suspects then shouted at everyone to leave the store and continued to claim a revolution had begun. The two suspects then exchanged about 20 shots with SWAT officers.

The two officers killed are identified as Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo.

Police have not established if the incidents were a series of random acts or part of a larger movement possibly targeting police officers. The investigation is ongoing.

In September 2011, a man armed with an AK-47 opened fire in an IHOP restaurant in Carson City, killing five people, including himself and three Army National Guard soldiers, and wounding seven others.

06/09/14 UPDATE: Las Vegas police say they are looking into whether the two suspects in the shooting deaths of the two officers had been at Cliven Bundy’s Nevada ranch during a standoff earlier this year. Assistant Sheriff Kevin McMahill said the two suspects, Jerad Miller and his wife, Amanda, had ideology that was along the lines of “militia and white supremacists.”

The couple was from Indiana. Officials say they also had plans to take over a courthouse and execute public officials.

The Clark County coroner’s office says Joseph Wilcox of Las Vegas died as he tried to stop the suspects. He was shot and killed by the female gunman.

My son and I went for a weekend dig. It was a university­ sponsored event and he found a Chinese coin dating to the late 19th century. The head of the operation said that he could keep the find since they had over a thousand of them from the site.

My little man was very proud of himself. It seemed to spark an interest in archeology for him as he jabbered all the way home about this method of digging verses that method of digging. To me I only know of one way of digging, so I was actually learning something here.

Later that night he asked if I had a chain so that he might put his coin around his neck. I gave him the chain from my old military dog tags.

The following day I to take him home to his mother. Four days later I picked him up and I noticed he wasn’t wearing his coin on his neck. I waited until he was in the car and we were out of the driveway before I asked where it was.

He told me that his mother didn’t want him wearing it any more because it didn’t ‘t represent Jesus. I instantly felt angry, but I managed to keep my mouth shut for the sake of my son.

Later that evening, he and I sat down and had a little discussion. He wanted to know if wearing the coin around his neck was the same as ‘idol worshipping?’

I told him that it was not. I explained that idol worshipping was when a person starts ‘putting’ something before Jesus, like money, work, or even worry.

This is when my son’s understanding and wisdom knocked my socks off. He looked at me and asked, “Then a golden cross full of diamonds could be an idol even though it represents Jesus, right?”

I had to sit and think about that for a moment. I answered, “Yes.”

Then he reminded me, “After all the original cross was made by man.”

There is a story finding its way around Facebook claiming President Obama and Vice-president Biden are a couple of rubes, who know nothing of the West. Though funny, it isn’t true.

“For those of you who have never traveled to the west, or southwest, cattle guards are horizontal steel rails placed at fence openings, in dug-out places in the roads adjacent to highways — sometimes across highways — to prevent cattle from crossing over that area.

For some reason the cattle will not step on the “guards,” probably because they fear getting their feet caught between the rails.

A few months ago, President Obama received and was reading a report that there were over 100,000 cattle guards in Colorado. The Colorado ranchers had protested his proposed changes in grazing policies, so he ordered the Secretary of the Interior to fire half of the “cattle” guards immediately!

Before the Secretary of the Interior could respond and presumably try to straighten President Obama out on the matter, Vice-President Joe Biden, intervened with a request that — before any “cattle” guards were fired, they be given six months of retraining. ‘Times are hard,’ said Biden, ‘It’s only fair to the cattle guards and their families be given six months of retraining!

And these two guys are running our country.”

The original “cattle guard” piece was simply a joke that more than a few credulous readers were willing to believe as a true story. Where the tale actually began is anybody’s guess, but a February 1995 article took a stab at identifying its putative origins:

The Pinedale Roundup, Pinedale, Wyoming became the latest newspaper to fall for a joke originated in the Billings Gazette.

Gary Svee, opinion editor for the Billings Gazette, said the paper ran the item in a section reserved each Friday for puns and jokes. But believes someone picked it up and ran it seriously.

Svee said he has heard the item had run in numerous papers throughout the West.

Others say it a take-up of a joke from the early 1950s. And this could very well be true.

Former Texas state senator Kent Hance, for example, has been known to tell the following story:

“I was on a ranch in Dimmitt during my high school days, and a guy drove up and asked for directions to the next ranch. I said, ‘Go north five miles, turn and go east five miles, then turn again after you pass a cattle guard.’

As the guy turned around, I noticed he had Connecticut license plates. He stopped and said, ‘Just one more question. What color uniform will that cattle guard be wearing?’”

A Russian fighter jet threatened an American reconnaissance plane in international airspace over the Sea of Okhotsk, which lies off Russia’s east coast, north of Japan.

“On the afternoon of April 23, a U.S. Air Force RC-135U flying in international airspace on a routine mission over the sea of Okhotsk was intercepted by a single Russian Su-27 Flanker,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said. “The Su-27 approached the RC-135 across the nose of the U.S. aircraft within approximately 100 feet.”

While the U.S. aircraft did not take evasive measures, the Russian pilot exposed its belly to the American crew as a way of showing that it was armed. It is the latest source of concern for U.S. officials since a heightening of U.S.-Russian tensions following Moscow’s intervention in Ukraine.

The RC-135U is a highly specialized reconnaissance plane equipped with communications gear designed to find and identify foreign military radar signals on land, at sea and in the air. Their crews, composed of two pilots, one navigator, two airborne systems engineers, at least 10 electronic warfare officers and six or more technical and other specialists.

The showdown was video-recorded by the aircrew.

Disclosure of the U.S.-Russian aerial faceoff comes as the Obama administration approved Russia’s use of upgraded sensors on planes used to fly over sensitive U.S. and allied military installations in Europe under the 1992 Open Skies Treaty, last week. The treaty permits flights using four types of sensors: optical panoramic and framing cameras, video cameras with real-time display, infrared line-scanning devices, and sideways-looking synthetic aperture radar.

The fiscal 2015 defense authorization bill has a provision that would prohibit using any funds to certify the upgraded Russian aircraft sensors. The provision blocks certification unless the Pentagon and intelligence leaders certify to Congress that the digital equipment “will not enhance the capability or potential of the Russian Federation to gather intelligence that poses an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.”

It also would link new equipment approval under Open Skies to a requirement that Russia is no longer illegally occupying Ukrainian territory and is no longer violating the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

“The committee is committed to effective and complete compliance with the Treaty on Open Skies, provided such compliance is not allowed to become a threat to the national security of the United States,” the bill says.

Four members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence — two Republicans and two Democrats — also expressed opposition to the sensor upgrade. The senators wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry earlier this year urging him to “carefully evaluate the ramifications of certification on future Open Skies observation flights.”

The State Department, the agency leading the Obama administration’s arm control-centered agenda, pushed for the aircraft certification in a bid to protect the treaty, even though Russia has violated several of its provisions. The agency’s own 2013 report on arms compliance said the Russians are violating the treaty by restricting spy flights over parts of Moscow, Chechnya, and near the Russian border with Georgia, closing airfields and failing to provide proper film in violation of the treaty.

The Russian violation of international airspace contrasts sharply with the Obama administration’s insistence on pursuing legal international arms agreements with Russia as a way to win Moscow’s favor. Officials call the treaty a confidence-building measure that allows legal spying on military sites.

“It contributes to European security by providing images and information on Russian forces, and by permitting observation flights to verify compliance with arms control agreements,” a White House statement said.

In mid-April a Russian Su-24 flew as close as 1,000 yards from USS Donald Cook at an altitude of only 500 feet. The fighter made up to 12 passes near the destroyer and failed to respond to radio contact made by the ship.

A second Su-24 in the region did not engage the destroyer.

The Su-24 fly by follows accusations from Russia that the U.S. violated the so-called 1936 Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits. Those rules call for warships from countries with out a coast on the Black Sea to leave after 21 days.

The Cook entered the Black Sea on a presence mission to reassure U.S. allies following the Russian invasion of Crimea. The ship is armed with a ballistic missile defense variant of the Aegis combat system and is designed to intercept and destroy rogue ballistic missiles as well as aircraft.

The Cook did not go to battle stations during the incident which lasted about 90 minutes.

New Mexico has a new ‘wilderness area’ containing 500,000 acres known as the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. It’s located next to the Mexican border and has five mountain ranges with prehistoric rock art and more recent historic sites such as a training area for the Apollo astronauts.

The Bureau of Land Management will oversee control of the land. About half of the land is to be set aside, meaning it will be closed to vehicles and construction.

The agreement remains controversial for both sides of the immigration debate.

“This is about opposing so many thousands of acres that is going to create nothing more than a pathway for criminals to get into this country to do their criminal acts,” said Dona Ana County Sheriff Todd Garrison.

“My fear is these areas will be used more than they are now because they’ll have access to it that will be private and closed off to every law-abiding citizen,” the sheriff said. “I believe this monument will hamper law enforcement’s ability to effectively patrol the area we need to patrol.”

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency refuted the claim that the designation would threaten border security.

“This designation will in no way limit our ability to perform our important border security mission, and in fact provides important flexibility as we work to meet this ongoing priority,” said spokeswoman Jenny Burke. “CBP is committed to continuing to work closely with the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Forest Service to maintain border security while ensuring the protection of the environment along the border.”

Administration officials said the declaration will merge a 2006 agreement between the Interior Department and the Homeland Security Department that allows U.S. Border Patrol some access to the land. That agreement prevents most routine patrols through wilderness, though it does allow them to continue to follow smugglers in hot pursuit.

Congressman Rob Bishop, of Utah argues the environmental restrictions will continue hurt the Border Patrol’s ability to do its job and sent a letter to Mr. Obama asking him to hold off until the border can be controlled.

“It’s irresponsible to focus efforts on new land designations rather than finding solutions to existing criminal activities plaguing the border,” the congressman wrote.

Bishop pointed to a case in which a National Park Service employee at Chiricahua National Monument in Arizona detailed the vicious attack she suffered at the hands of an illegal immigrant. Authorities said the man smashed her head into a metal bathroom door and hit her head with a rock, striking so hard that the rock broke.

“By creating this monument, President Obama is ensuring a pathway to get drugs into the country” said Zack Taylor, Chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers.

Taylor, a 26-year border security veteran, pointed out that one of the most dangerous cities in the world, Juarez, Mexico, is right across the New Mexico border. Impeding law enforcement near this section of the border could allow Juarez’s cartels and violence to enter the U.S. with ease.

“This is the wrong place to put a monument,” Taylor said. “The New Mexico border has no river–it’s just an imaginary line. If criminal illegal aliens can walk across the border and into the sanctuary area, they will use that land for criminal activity and use it extensively. Everything surrounding the monument is in peril.”

“Who benefits form this more than the cartels?” Taylor asked. “The people who live there don’t benefit, law enforcement doesn’t benefit, the sheriffs don’t benefit. The only people who benefit from this monument are illegal immigrants brining drugs into this country.

Environmentalists say we’re protecting this land by shutting people out, but we’re actually doing the opposite.”

Conservationists and tourism businesses have been pushing for the designation, hoping it will bring more visitors.

“The Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument will help protect our way of life while allowing for responsible development and expanding opportunities for all Americans to enjoy the beauty and multi-cultural history of this unique landscape,” Billy Garrett, Dona Ana County Commission chairman, said in a statement.

The half-million-acre proposal also has the backing of the state’s U.S. senators.

“An Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument will preserve important cultural links to our past and strengthen southern New Mexico’s economy by boosting tourism and recreational opportunities, like hunting, hiking, camping, and horseback riding,” Senator Martin Heinrich said in a statement.

The New Mexico wilderness area is Obama’s second designation this year. In March, he added 1,600 acres in the Point Arena-Stornetta region to the California Coastal National Wilderness Area established by President Bill Clinton in 2000.

Life-long Klamath, California resident Pam Collins passed away May 29, 2014. Born March 4, 1943 to Pernie and Ernest “Mike” Benedict, she married Tom Collins, June 25, 1960.

We used to go with our folks to visit ‘Grandma’ Pernie and ‘Grandpa’ Mike. Her brother was better known as ‘Uncle Ron,’ to me and my siblings, since he used to come to the house for dinner before he got married.

Lori and I attended school together at both Margaret Keating School and then Del Norte High. One time Mike was over at our house because Mom was babysitting him, and after irritating me with his constant teasing, I threatened to hang him on the wall by his thumbs.

When Pam found out what I said, she was ready to skin me alive. I don’t think Mom ever watched Mike again after that.

Pam’s survived by her husband Tom; her children Lori, Michael, and Joel.  She was preceded in death by her parents and brother.