Comedian Kathy Griffin faced swift backlash after the photo in which she posed with a fake severed head that looked like President Trump. And since, she has continued to receive threats. In a press conference on Friday, she repeated her apology, but said that it is outrageous and unprecedented that the President of the United States is personally trying to “ruin a comedian.”

Standing next to her lawyer, Lisa Bloom, she said, “I don’t think I will have a career after this. He broke me.” She said that people fell into some kind of mob mentality and that death threats started rolling in. Her video apology doesn’t seem to have had much effect on public scrutiny, and she was also reportedly contacted by the Secret Service, which is now investigating her.

After the controversy, Griffin has lost several jobs, including five stand-up gigs and her annual job as co-host of CNN’s New Year’s Eve program. She has hosted that show for 10 years. Griffin said the Trump family is bullying her by exercising its influence on private companies as well as the public sector, calling for everyone to fire her.

Kathy Griffin on fallout over photo: “Regarding the image that I participated in, that apology absolutely stands. I feel horrible.” pic.twitter.com/ffqhfnijKf

— ABC News (@ABC) June 2, 2017

“He’s the president of the United States,” Bloom said. “This is outrageous and unprecedented.” She added: “For the first time in history that we are aware of, the President of the United States and his family has personally attempted to ruin a comedian. The message was clear: Criticize the president, lose your job.”

Bloom also pointed out what many people on social media already have said: President Obama had to withstand a number of threats during his time in office. Musician Ted Nugent made threats against him and Hillary Clinton, but was recently invited to the White House.

“Obama, he’s a piece of s—. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless b—-,” Nugent said on a stage appearance in 2007, while holding two machine guns. In April, he had dinner with Trump in the White House.

It’s reprehensible what Kathy Griffin did, & the left has denounced it.
Ted Nugent did it to Obama, & your dad invited him to the WH. https://t.co/jhOGmr4egG

— Laurie Crosswell (@lauriecrosswell) May 30, 2017

A lot of people started calling out the Trumps for having a double standard, and when Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the controversy during Wednesday’s press briefing, he just said he didn’t know what Trump’s response was at the time.

After the bipartisan outrage at the photo shoot, at least two celebrities have come to Kathy Griffin’s defense. “I still love Kathy Griffin. She went past the line, she’ll pay for it in the way she pays for it, and we’ll go out and we’ll laugh with her again,” said Jamie Foxx to Entertainment Weekly. And Jim Carrey agreed–he said when a president does the type of “crazy things” that Trump is doing, comedians are the “last voice of truth.” “I think it is the job of a comedian to cross the line at all times — because that line is not real,” he said.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Misogyny in Brazil is in the spotlight after soccer club Boa Esporte rushed to sign 32-year old goalie Bruno Fernandes de Souza, who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend in 2010. De Souza, widely known as just Bruno, only served seven years out of a 22-year sentence, and reportedly other clubs also tried to sign him as soon as he was released. Bruno was convicted of ordering the torture and dismembering of his former girlfriend, 25-year old model Eliza Samudio, and then having his friends feed her body parts to his dogs.

Samudio was also the mother of Bruno’s child, and he ordered the murder after she demanded that he pay child support. Violence against women is a big problem in Brazil, and the announcement of Boa Esporte’s two-year contract with Bruno sparked outrage from Samudio’s family and others. “Women are outraged and so are the general public. It is as if he had gone unpunished,” wrote Brazilian feminist activist Djamila Ribeiro.

Bruno had his ex-girlfriend murdered, dismembered & fed to dogs.

After just 7 years of a 22-year sentence, he’s got a new club. Revolting. https://t.co/zsDuLQi4HZ

— Joe Crann (@YesWeCrann) March 13, 2017

At least three sponsors have withdrawn their support of Boa Esporte in the wake of this news, but the city of Varghina still backs the club. Samudio’s mother filed an unsuccessful lawsuit asking for Bruno to be sent back to prison, as he might be posing a threat to her grandson. But Boa Esporte’s president Rone Moraes da Costa defended the decision to sign Bruno, saying that he has served his sentence and that Boa Esporte is helping him get back on track, through the “dignity of work.”

This explanation was not enough for protesters, especially after video clips emerged of Bruno celebrating his release from prison with champagne, and  outrage has continued both nationally and from overseas. A demonstration is planned outside the club’s stadium and some fans have pledged to not watch the team play as long as Bruno is a part of it. Recently a group of feminists hacked the club’s website.

ESPORTE INTERATIVO:

Boa Esporte’s official site has been hacked by feminists, after announcing the signing of Bruno who had killed his GF. pic.twitter.com/IpVD5sSkrY

— Seleção Brasileira (@BrazilStat) March 13, 2017

Violence against women and girls in Brazil increased by 24 percent over the previous decade according to Amnesty International, and the government cut the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Racial Equality, and Human Rights last May. Brazil was named one of the worst countries in South America for young women. And as long as powerful organizations care more about publicity and money than standing up for victims of violence, change seems far off. But at least there are feminist movements on the rise. The Popular Feminist Front of Varginha, the group that plans the demonstration at the stadium, wrote in a Facebook post:

We protest both against this contract and against the willingness of the team and its sponsors to have their images linked to feminicide. A woman-killer must not be allowed a life acclaimed by the media. Bruno is no longer just a goalkeeper; his notoriety reflects the ease with which a woman’s life is forgotten in the interests of a sporting career.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Outrage in Brazil After Team Signs Soccer Player Who Murdered His Girlfriend appeared first on Law Street.

The continuing saga of false and misleading operations at various Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals throughout the country hit a new level last week. While we know that there has been a critical backlog of veterans waiting for healthcare services, the backlog itself is not the scandal. What’s got everyone upset is misconduct by VA employees who input false and misleading information into the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), the system used to electronically log appointment requests. The public is outraged, and rightly so, but Congress is acting just as surprised as the rest of us, and therein lies the issue. The real question the public needs to ask is, why the phony outrage Congress?

Due to public outcry, the House Veterans Affairs Committee held a hearing on June 9, 2014 entitled Oversight Hearing on Data Manipulation and Access to VA Healthcare: Testimony from GAO, IG, and VA. Assistant Deputy Undersecretary of the VA Philip Matkovsky was asked about the technology used to schedule appointments, to which he answered, “Our scheduling system made its first appointment in April of 1985…it has not changed in any appreciable manner since that date.”  Yes, you read that right. The technology currently used by the VA is more than 30 years old. Technology changes significantly each year. It’s completely unacceptable to think using a system that old would increase efficiency and remain effective. As the hearing continued, Richard J. Griffin, acting VA Inspector Generalm testified that, “Since 2005 the OIG has issued 18 reports that identified at both the national and local level, deficiencies in scheduling resulting in lengthy wait times and negative impact on patient care.”

The Veterans Administration has been championed as a pioneer in healthcare information technology. In a 2005 Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing entitled Information and Technology at the VA – Is It ready for the 21st Century, Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Gordon Mansfield testified that his department had seen significant changes in IT operations.  A major reason this hearing was held was to discuss the VA’s use of more than $2 billion in appropriated funds to update information technology. (It should also be noted that 1,200 information technology service contracts valued at approximately $5.2 billion were awarded between October 2010 through June 2012.)  Mr. Mansfield pointed to editorials, professional journal publications, and even remarks from a speech delivered by President George W. Bush on April 27, 2004 describing his intentions to expand the VA’s electronic health records beyond the VA as examples of the great progress made. Although this testimony may seem to substantiate Congress’ claims of being unaware of the technology issues the VA faced, it does not explain why the Chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee personally requested an audit of Veterans Integrated Service Network 3 in 2008.

The Veterans Affairs Department breaks up the entire country into Veterans Integrated Service Networks to identify the clinics and hospitals Veterans are eligible to visit in their area.  VISN 3 represents portions of New York and New Jersey.  In 2008 the VA Office of the Inspector General conducted an audit on VISN 3 and this report uncovered the manipulation practices of the scheduling system that have also been identified in the current scandal. The report was sent to Michael J. Kussman, the Undersecretary of Health with recommendations; however, Mr. Kussman had this to say in response:

I have carefully reviewed your report on scheduling practices within VISN 3, and I do not concur with your conclusions and recommendations. Because the issues you cite reflect the need for national solutions to acknowledged policy-related concerns that VHA is already addressing in response to your previous reports, it is counterproductive to single out VISN 3 in your recommendations for accountability issues that apply to every other VISN, as well.

The Assistant Inspector General wasn’t going to take that lying down and responded with the following:

Contrary to the Under Secretary’s statement, we did not single out VISN 3 for this review. The Chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee requested we conduct this audit based on serious allegations the committee received that VISN 3 was intentionally distorting the numbers on waiting times. We also take exception to the Under Secretary’s non-concurrence with the report’s conclusions and recommendations based merely on the fact that the issues we reported reflect the need for national policy solutions that VHA claims they are already addressing. Our exception is based on the fact that VHA has recognized the need to improve the accuracy of waiting times data, yet has taken no meaningful action to achieve this goal to date. We can only conclude that VHA’s stated intention to correct recognized and long-standing problems is not sincere.

 

After reading several of the OIG reports it is clear that the VistA technology has a major flaw. Since the first report in 2005, the VA uncovered that scheduling can be manipulated by overwriting the Electronic Waiting List system and scheduling appointments on top of an already existing one. Overwriting the system does two things.

1. It changes the originally created date to the current date of entry, and changes the desired date to the date of the appointment, reducing the reported wait time.
2. The cancellation of the original date of creation is never recorded.  

In an attempt to make the logs appear to meet scheduling requirements, employees are able to overwrite the system to show they are in compliance with scheduling procedures even when they’re not. This has made it increasingly more difficult to identify when a request was originally created and interferes with the Veteran Affairs Department’s ability to accurately report the true wait time based on electronic waiting lists.

The OIG reports recommend stopping this employee behavior by providing training to employees to ensure compliance with scheduling systems standards. Surprisingly, there was never a recommendation for using a portion of the appropriated billions of dollars the VA Department was given on an entirely new scheduling system.

The VA’s Office of the Inspector General has issued 18 reports, each sent to Congress, and at least one of which was personally requested by a Senate Committee Chairman. Even if all 535 members of Congress weren’t aware, the members of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees most certainly were. Of the several billions of dollars appropriated to the VA Department for IT operations, it’s astounding to me that nobody thought to update the technology or at the very least get rid of the overwriting loophole the employees uncovered in the system.  As seen in the 2008 report, the VA knew the problem and chose to fight among themselves instead of fixing it. Then legislators responsible for oversight of the Department pretended to be completely unaware of what was going on once the truth was reported to the public. The general public, and Veterans especially, should be upset that this was allowed to continue.  But again I must ask Congress, why the phony outrage?

__

Teerah Goodrum (@AisleNotes), is a recent Graduate of Howard University with a Masters degree in Public Administration and Public Policy. Her time on Capitol Hill as a Science and Technology Legislative Assistant has given her insight into the tech community. In her spare time she enjoys visiting her favorite city, Seattle, and playing fantasy football.

Featured image courtesy of [DVIDSHUB via Flickr]

Teerah Goodrum

Teerah Goodrum is a Graduate of Howard University with a Masters degree in Public Administration and Public Policy. Her time on Capitol Hill as a Science and Technology Legislative Assistant has given her insight into the tech community. In her spare time she enjoys visiting her favorite city, Seattle, and playing fantasy football. Contact Teerah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Why the Phony Outrage Over the VA Scandal, Congress? appeared first on Law Street.