Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

VA Scheduler Whistleblower/Confessions

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FNC report and video here. Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald has made a point of giving out his personal contact information, to show how accessible he is as he works to overhaul the embattled agency.

But the bid backfired Thursday, after he urged one famous veteran dealing with poor treatment to contact him. When “Fox & Friends” tried his number, they reached his voicemail — and got a message to call back later as his voicemail was “full.”

TAMPA (FOX 13) – Bay Area veterans say they’re still facing excessive wait times for benefits and health care. The VA Inspector General found 307,000 veterans may have died waiting for access to the VA health care system.

Veterans who do get enrolled say significant delays for medical service persist.

“They gave me an appointment six months down the road, and then called to say they had to cancel,” said Winter Haven veteran Keith Brown. “It can be a year before you get the actual appointment.”

That conflicts with information provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which showing wait times have improved following the VA scandal of 2014.

Nick McSwain says there may be a reason for that. He said when he worked as a VA scheduler through the beginning of 2015, he was told to disregard patients’ desired dates for appointment, then note the actual scheduled date as the ‘desired’ date — thereby showing no delay based on what veterans requested.

“It says ‘What is the desired date’ (in the system) and instead of using that date, we use the appointment we actually give them so it shows no gap,” said McSwain.

He also claims veterans who complained had to wait even longer for future appointments.

“Vets who should have been seen top priority were passed over because of the way providers feel about this guy. They’d say ‘I hate this guy’ or ‘he’s annoying,” said McSwain, w

ho also noted that consults for specialty health care piled up when he worked in a scheduling center. “There have been times when stacks of consults disappeared.”

A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis said his district offices have opened 314 VA-related cases since January 2, 2015, pertaining to both benefits and health care.

FOX 13 asked the Department of Veterans Affairs to respond to a range of questions and issues raised by Thompson, Brown, and other veterans. The department answered our questions and provided data to show the VA is making progress and notable improvements since the national VA scandal broke in 2014.

The VA provided the following snapshot of data through November 1, 2015:

  1. Between June 1, 2014, and November 1, 2015, the electronic wait list (EWL) went from 56,271 appointments to 46,146, a 17.99 percent reduction.
  2. VHA created 2.5 million authorizations for Veterans to receive care in the private sector from October 29, 2014 through October 28, 2015. This represents a 3 percent increase in authorizations when compared to the same period in 2013/2014.

A spokeswoman at the James Haley Veterans Hospital and clinics also sent us an email including the following statement and response to our questions.

“James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital and Clinics is a continuous improvement organization. We are always looking to improve processes and quality of care for our patients and their caregivers. As a matter of fact, we will be participating in the national VA Access Stand Down this Saturday. The Department of Veterans Affairs is committed to providing timely access to Veterans as determined by their clinical needs.  On Saturday, November 14, VA medical centers across the country will participate in a first ever National Access Stand Down.  A team of clinical leaders, administrators and volunteers will be on site at every VA medical center to reach out to all Veterans identified as having the most important and acute needs to make sure they can be seen either in VA or in the community – including here at JAHVH…”

The James A. Haley Veterans Hospital answered our questions as follows:

What are the current average wait times for primary care, specialty care and mental health care?

Our wait-times are published every two weeks, the same as other VA facilities and current and historical wait time and access data can be reviewed at: http://www.va.gov/health/access-audit.asp

Currently James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital and Clinics average wait times are 1.33 days for Primary Care, 6.33 days for Specialty Care (just as in the public sector, length can vary significantly by Specialty Clinics) and 3.66 days for Mental Health.

JAHVH has more than 90,000 unique patients and we schedule between 4,000-5,000 appointments daily in all areas of our medical facilities and at our outpatient clinics and receive more than 46,000 consults per month in FY 15.

Every new consult is reviewed by a clinical provider as part of the triage process to determine the clinical urgency of the request. Patients are seen as soon as possible based on clinical review – the more acute the need – the faster the patient is scheduled for an appointment on average.
Do lengthy hold times by phone to schedule a doctor or specialist persist? 

Our average wait time to answer the phone is 49 seconds in FY 15 (the national goal is less than 30 seconds) and our abandonment rate is 3.9% (the national goal is less than 5%), but depending on the location within the medical center a person is calling, hold times and speed to answer the phones can vary. We recognize this can be one of the biggest areas of dissatisfaction with patients and the medical center has established a workgroup that is working to improve telephone access to all areas. Additionally, patients are encouraged to use secure messaging if possible to consult with their health care providers.

Are there safeguards to prevent veterans seeking medical appointments from being left on hold indefinitely?  If so, can they be worked around?

The phone system has different features throughout the medical center based on the volume of calls and staffing level of clinic areas.  One tool we use in high volume areas is the Automatic Call Distributor (ACD) lines. These lines will automatically roll over to the next available operator after a certain length of time. Also some clinics are piloting the use a call back feature for patients who choose not to wait on hold.  Secure messaging is always another option that patients can use to communicate with their providers, and if a patient has difficulty reaching a provider, we encourage patients to reach out to the Service Liaisons or Patient Advocates Office.

Do veterans in the Tampa Bay area continue to encounter lengthy delays to see a doctor or specialist once appointments are booked?

Again, wait times vary based on the type of care, but our average wait times range from 1.33 to 6.33 days. If a patient is unable to be seen at our facilities within 30 days of the clinically indicated/preferred date, that patient is offered care through the Choice program and is then eligible to receive care in the community. Wait times in the community can also be lengthy based on the availability of certain specialty care required and can be a longer wait than VA care in some cases.

We are continuously and proactively reviewing our high demand specialty areas to help further increase capacity and efficiencies. For example, we do “Super Saturday Clinics” in both Ortho and GI to reduce some of the current patient wait times and are actively working to fill vacant provider positions. JAHVH hiring emphasis has been on Patient Aligned Care Teams (Primary Care) and high demand Specialty Care Services to increase access, including Orthopedics, GI, Ophthalmology and Radiology and we’ve filled over 100 new FTE positions under VACAA funding including providers, nurses and support positions.

During FY 14, JAHVH activated more than 300,000 square feet of new space, which opened up space for specialty care to expand. JAHVH increased specialty care spaces from 34 to 84 exam rooms for a net increase of about 150%, including an additional:

  • 18 in Ortho
  • 14 in GI
  • 17 in Neurology to open in first quarter of FY16

Additionally, extended hours and weekend appointments are offered at Tampa, New Port Richey Outpatient Clinic, and Lakeland Community Based Outpatient Clinic.

How are consults (enabling veterans to seek specialty care) organized and accounted for to prevent them from getting lost?

Consults are managed and organized in compliance with the National Consult Management Business Rules. All notes are kept in individual patient records.

JAHVH also has a Consult Management Committee (CMC) and designated consult managers within each service who are responsible for ensuring the consults do not get lost. The CMC is a standing medical center-level committee designated to receive, monitor, analyze and address all aspects of consult management to meet the facility’s mission and commitment to timeliness of care, provide support to enhance communication of Veterans’ needs, and outcome of treatment.  As part of these activities, the CMC functions to coordinate the assessment, implementation, and management of consults and related VISTA structures with all other appropriate entities and reports these activities as appropriate. The CMC identifies opportunities for improvement, and recommends corrective action plans.

Have schedulers within the VA health care system ever been told by VA management to disregard regulations in any way?

Schedulers are trained to follow all scheduling guidelines. Refresher training is provided to schedulers when scheduling errors are identified through observation, periodic and scheduled audits, etc. There was refresher scheduling training completed for all staff who have scheduling options conducted between July – September 2015. Any staff that did not complete this training had their scheduling access removed.

Specifically, have schedulers been told to disregard ‘desired’ appointment dates, to avoid gaps between ‘desired’ dates and scheduled dates?  

Employees are fully and regularly trained and should never disregard regulations when making an appointment for patients. JAHVH is audited by both internal and external organizations to review and ensure data and appointment policies and procedures are followed correctly.  JAHVH executive leadership does not advocate or condone any data manipulation or scheduling irregularities. Should an instance of irregularity be identified, it would be reviewed and corrective action would be taken as necessary.

Have veterans who complain about poor service or delays been adversely affected (with longer waits) as a result of their complaints?

We encourage anyone with a specific concern to contact the hospital’s team of Patient Advocacy Specialists that work as liaisons for the Director’s Office and are on staff specifically to assist Veterans with any issues or concerns they may have. Additionally, we have Service Liaisons, who field incoming calls from Veterans and either answer their questions or route the individuals to the appropriate office to handle their concerns. JAHVH follows national scheduling guidelines and reviews all appointment and consult requests to ensure they are scheduled timely according to the patients’ clinical needs and condition.

For veterans who complain they are unable to utilize their choice cards as they would like, how does VA respond?

JAHVH follows the CHOICE Program rules based on the VACAA law that state a Veteran is eligible for non-VA care in the community if he/she lives more than 40 miles from a VA Facility (to include CBOCs even if they don’t offer the specialty) or if based on long wait times (patients that have an appointment scheduled greater than 30 days from when the clinically indicated/preferred date). Veterans may file an “excessive burden” appeal. Additionally, on July 31, 2015, the President signed Public Law 114-41, the Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015. Title IV, the VA Budget and Choice Improvement Act, makes several changes to the Veterans Choice Program. We are currently awaiting implementation guidance of these changes. More information about the choice program can be found: http://www.va.gov/opa/choiceact/

 

Mizzou: White House, “Its on Us”

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Fabricate a problem and then ride in on a white steed to solve the problem and those invited to the White House and willing accomplices or rather useful idiots to have their own individual moments in the sun.

There are countless moving parts including ‘The Hunting Ground’.

UMN student govt: 9/11 remembrance would violate our safe space

From the White House press office: FACT SHEET: Launch of the “It’s On Us” Public Awareness Campaign to Help Prevent Campus Sexual Assault

Proof this is the White House when it comes to Mizzou and other campuses? It also involves the NCAA, meaning football hence the reason the football team went on strike an did not practice.

From the White House website: President Obama Launches the “It’s On Us” Campaign to End Sexual Assault on Campus

It’s on us — all of us — to stop sexual assault. Here are a few tips on what you can do to be part of the solution:

  1. Talk to your friends honestly and openly about sexual assault.
  2. Don’t just be a bystander — if you see something, intervene in any way you can.
  3. Trust your gut. If something looks like it might be a bad situation, it probably is.
  4. Be direct. Ask someone who looks like they may need help if they’re ok.
  5. Get someone to help you if you see something — enlist a friend, RA, bartender, or host to help step in.
  6. Keep an eye on someone who has had too much to drink.
  7. If you see someone who is too intoxicated to consent, enlist their friends to help them leave safely.
  8. Recognize the potential danger of someone who talks about planning to target another person at a party.
  9. Be aware if someone is deliberately trying to intoxicate, isolate, or corner someone else.
  10. Get in the way by creating a distraction, drawing attention to the situation, or separating them.
  11. Understand that if someone does not or cannot consent to sex, it’s rape.
  12. Never blame the victim.

If you are a victim or survivor, or helping someone in that situation, go to notalone.gov to get the resources and information you need. You can also call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. 

The NCAA, Big Ten conferences, MTV, VH1, and a few others you might recognize have already made a personal commitment to help stop sexual assault. See why — then join them in taking the pledge at ItsOnUs.org. The full document is here.

There is more from the White House, ‘Get off the Sidelines’.

Summary:
Our responsibility is to get off of the sidelines. Don’t just be a bystander: Intervene when you see someone who might be at risk of sexual assault. That’s what this It’s On Us message — narrated by actor Jon Hamm — is all about.

It’s estimated that one in five women is sexually assaulted while she’s in college. It most often occurs in her freshman or sophomore year, by someone she knows.

And it’s on every one of us to stop that trend.

Our responsibility is to get off of the sidelines. Don’t just be a bystander: Intervene when you see someone who might be at risk.

That’s what the new It’s On Us message — narrated by actor Jon Hamm — is all about. Watch the video, then take the pledge to help prevent campus sexual assault. The full document is here.

‘overthrow the Constitution,’ ‘stop white people’

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Campuses across the country had better understand the movement or they will all become Mizzou. There is little time left for the Obama administration and the chilling fear is what is left to do. Here is but one that no one is going to address such that the White House endorses this movement as noted here.

The multi-university Afrikan Black Coalition is calling for black people to engage in revolution and overthrow the Constitution, citing the need to “stop white people” in the “white supremacist world” of America.

“It is our human right to overthrow a government that has been destructive to our people,” the Coalition claimed in a November 4 post titled “A New Constitution or the Bullet.”

“It is our human right to overthrow a government that has been destructive to our people.”   

“If America fails to allow all people of this nation to write a new constitution, then it will be the bullet. Revolution is inevitable in a society that does not value the lives of all people,” the Coalition threatened.

The Coalition goes on to declare that institutional racism (the same ‘evil’ the student protestors at the University of Missouri claimed to be combatting) can’t be overcome unless the Constitution is overthrown.

“A Constitution written by only white men will never serve the interests Black [sic] people. The Constitution was written for the ruling class of white men which constructed whiteness to be more valuable than any other race,” the Coalition argues. “When we discuss institutional racism, it is essential that we realize the Constitution created it.”

A November 9 post from the Coalition called for white people to be stopped at all costs and accuses whites of “stealing from other people,” having trouble “minding their own business,” and “respecting boundaries.” According to the Coalition, the “religious indoctrination” engaged in by whites is an example of white people’s failure to respect boundaries.

The Coalition goes on to declare that “White people have historically had problems making too many “mistakes.” White people need to be stopped. Period.”

The Afrikan Black Coalition is comprised of black student organizations across California and “was created in 2003 by Black students within the University of California system who found the low admittance and retention rates of Black students intolerable,” according to the organization’s website.

The Coalition hosts an annual Afrikan Black Coalition Conference at one of its “partner schools such as UC Santa Barbara (which is hosting the 2016 conference in February). Several taxpayer-funded universities including UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and San Diego State University openly show their support for the Afrikan Black Coalition Conference on their websites and UCLA’s African Student Union is openly recruiting students to join the university’s “delegation” to the conference. A website advertising the conference claims to have been paid for by UCSB’s student government.

UC Berkeley also allowed the Afrikan Black Coalition to publish a statement on the university website after the George Zimmerman trial. The Coalition also used the university website to announce their “plan to deconstruct and dismantle America’s racist institutions.”

The Afrikan Black Coalition did not respond to Campus Reform’s request for comment in time for publication.

A New Constitution or the Bullet

Posted by Afrikan Coalition dot org demanding a new Constitution

I never thought I would be in the place I am in right now. About two months ago, I was in Oakland at a “Say Her Name” protest and was being detained by about 25 cops in riot gear. I had a text message ready to send to my lawyer that I was about to be arrested. Luckily, myself and other protesters were let go. The next day as I was in my kitchen doing dishes and I began singing the freedom song passed down to our generation by elder community activists, “Which side are you on?”. After organizing and participating in numerous protests, cries for freedom rang through my mind. However, I began to feel hopeless.

After what has felt like endless hours of Black protest and uprising throughout the United States, I felt like our progress was moving in circles. Instead of police killings decreasing in the Bay Area, I witnessed an increase in killings of Black men in Oakland. Five Black men have been executed by in OPD this summer alone. I am tired of waking up and checking twitter to see another Black body as a hashtag. Our Black Lives Matter protests have stormed the country, yet cops continue to kill us daily, and the and the judicial system continues to justify our deaths with acquittals, non-indictments and light sentences-all in the name of upholding the Constitution.

I have come to realize that the Constitution is the root of virtually all our problems in America. In order to understand the injustices against Black folks in United States, we must look back to its foundation. The U.S. is a country that was founded on slavery, genocide, rape, and white male patriarchy. The colonizers that we condemn for enslaving Afikans and murdering indigenous peoples are the same people that produced and upheld the document we use to govern our nation to this day. Our bloodshed is rooted in this nation’s founding document, The Constitution. A body cannot be separated from its head and remain living. The Constitution and all the evil that it allows to be perpetuated are the head of White America, or more so corrupt America. Racist America. If you separate the head the racism will die.

This constitution was written for “all men to be equal”, yet these same white men who cried out for equality and freedom from persecution owned Black people as slaves and participated in calculated genocidal tactics against the Black race. In addition, only white men wrote the Constitution. A Constitution written by only white men will never serve the interests Black people. The Constitution was written for the ruling class of white men which constructed whiteness to be more valuable than any other race. When we discuss institutional racism, it is essential that we realize the Constitution created it.

The Constitution has created a system of governance that has been executing Black people everyday. From slavery, to sharecropping, to debt peonage, to chain gangs, to gentrification, to the for-profit prison industry that is upheld through the 13th amendment which allows for slavery if one has committed a crime. From Emmett Till, to the four little girls, to Mike Brown, to Rekia Boyd, to Maya Hall, to the Charleston nine, and to Sandra Bland. America has not protected us. On the contrary, it seeks to destory our very own humanity. We live in a society that is not safe for us. And as the Declaration of Independence says:

whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

Do we not have the right to abolish the laws that oppress us? It is time to claim the Declaration of Independence and apply it to our struggle as colonized Black people in America. The United States has us; it is time we demand a new constitution or tell America that she will get the bullet. White supremacy’s bullets are killing Black people every day. If America does not protect us, then it is our human right to defend ourselves by any means necessary. It is our human right to overthrow a government that has been destructive to our people. This is why we must rise up and let all people come together and write new constitution to serve ALL people.

The idea for a new constitution is not a new idea, rather an old one that was developed by the Black Panther Party. In 1970, the Black Panther Party organized a Revolutionary People’s Constitutional Convention, however, after infiltration by the illegal COINTELPRO the idea never came into fruition. We must pick up where the Black Panthers left off and declare a new constitution or it will be the bullet.

If America truly wants to be a nation that values the lives of all people, it has one option, and the option is a National Constitution Convention. This is the last hope America has to become whole. If America fails to allow all people of this nation to write a new constitution, then it will be the bullet. Revolution is inevitable in a society that does not value the lives of all people.

Let the bells of freedom ring…

In struggle,

-Blake

@BlakeDontCrack

VA Paid out $142 Million in Bonuses in 2014

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VA gave 156,000 employees $142 million in bonuses in 2014

WashingtonExaminer: The Department of Veterans Affairs VA shelled out more than $142 million in performance bonuses in 2014, the same year that the VA’s healthcare scandal exploded and revealed the VA was systematically denying veterans access to health care.

The average individual payout was over $900 for the thousands of employees. A total of 156,000 VA workers qualified for bonuses as a result of being rated them “fully successful” or higher at carrying out their responsibilities last year, including officials at delay-prone hospitals. But those ratings were later found to be inflated, as the vast majority of workers were getting rated highly enough to get a bonus.

More than 325 were compensated with $5,000 to $13,000 in year-end bonuses, according to data given to the Washington Examiner by the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Before he resigned, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said he’d stop bonuses at the troubled agency. But in the summer of 2014, Congress approved legislation allowing the agency to hand out up to $360 million in bonuses each year.

House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., said the bonus awards are part of a “disturbing trend” of rewarding workers even when they haven’t earned it.

“VA loves to tout its bonus program as a way to attract and retain the best and brightest employees,” Miller wrote. “Unfortunately, often times the employees VA rewards with thousands in taxpayer-funded bonuses are not the type of people the department should be interested in attracting or retaining.”

In the current Congress, the House has passed a number of bills that include language to rein in the department until better results are obtained, including recouping bonuses paid to employees, changing the cap on bonuses from $360 million to $300 million, and limiting senior-level bonuses to $2 million per year.

The Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs is currently considering three of the House-approved bills.

“Rewarding failure only breeds more failure. Until VA leaders learn this important lesson and make a commitment to supporting real accountability at the department, efforts to reform VA are doomed to fail,” said Miller.

*** Some other truths about the VA: 300,000 Veterans Die Waiting

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In a Fox 17 Waste Watch investigation, government findings finally confirm reports you’ve seen on Fox 17 News about US veterans dying while waiting for healthcare through the VA.

To make matters worse, the number of those who have died while waiting for this care is six times higher than originally estimated.
Even with an increase in funding, the VA’s Office of Inspector General is calling for an overhaul.
Midstate veteran David Jones says he’s among the more than 800,000 veterans whose file is stuck in a “pending” status.
Jones says, “People are trying to get well, they’re trying to get benefits and it’s next to impossible.”

Jones is unable to get the care he needs because his application to the Veterans Health Administration’s Health Eligibility Center is backlogged in its Enrollment System.

This VA Office of Inspector General report confirms that not all of these applicants are for veterans actively seeking enrollment in VA health care.
It says the applications of these veterans have been “inactive” for years and more than 300,000 veterans died during this time.
Congressman Diane Black (R-TN, 6th District) says, “I was surprised.  I thought we’d see a different number than what we did.”

Since reports of this VA issue initially surfaced about two years ago, the President has named a new head of the agency.  Congress has approved for VA Secretary Robert McDonald to fire employees not doing their jobs.

The agency’s data system has changed and it’s received a 5.5 percent budget increase with the President allocating more than $168-billion dollars to the VA in his 2016 budget. Fox 17 News has also found this OIG report calls out VA employees for incorrectly marking unprocessed applications as “completed” and may have deleted more than 10-thousand transactions from its system.

The government’s Human Resources Office and General Council are now determining if administrative action should be taken against any senior officials in the Veterans Health Administration or Office of Information and Technology.

Fox 17 News will continue bringing you updates on this developing story.

A Confirmation he is Gay or What?

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There is a real kinship in the Obama White House with the whole LGBT agenda and it has been going on for years. Now it appears some aggressive tactics are surfacing at universities.

Good to know that US Secretary of Education is committed to ending racism on college campuses.

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. & I have been strategizing & connecting today!

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Last June, enough time to organize as noted below:

is in good company at The White House today!

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Other world leaders must be asking themselves and others just what the hell is going on. The world is in a meltdown and Obama is concerned with climate-change and LGBT agendas, even Israel is questioning the White House priorities and relationships.

The top activist at the University of Missouri is Payton Head and as suggested by a previous post on this site, the White House has their fingerprints all over the matter of the protests at Mizzou.

Payton Head has been to the White House along with several other Black Lives Matter activists, so this is no surprise.  

Hat tip to Breitbart: The University of Missouri’s student body president, Payton Head, is apologizing“for scaring everybody with false KKK on campus rumor.”

It was a rough night on the campus of the University of Missouri, thanks in large part to Student Body President Payton Head. Head posted on Facebook earlier in the night that the KKK was confirmed on campus and that he was working with “the MUPD, the state trooper and the National Guard.”

The only problem with that terrifying statement is it wasn’t true and Head was forced to delete the post and apologize:

Given Head’s central role in recent protests at Mizzou, some may not be surprised to find a connection between Head, from an upper middle class Chicago neighborhood, and the nation’s community organizer in chief, Barack Obama. Per his Facebook page, the two met in July, 2011 when Head visited the White House.

There are also as yet unconfirmed Internet reports that Head interned for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Payton Head came from an upper middle class black family in Cook county. He was at the core of the debate over racial tensions. He wrote a long and vivid story on his experience at MU, and posted it on Facebook. Despite being only 7% of the student population, the student council is overwhelmingly (100%) black.

Who is Payton Head? Payton head was an honor student from Chicago. He is openly gay, and calls himself a Christian. He is well traveled. Within one year of his senior graduation from high school, Head traveled to Europe. He met Barack Obama. https://www.facebook…35072167&type=3 When he got to MU, he was selected to be a guide. Not many get that privilege. He resigned that position, and spent the summer in Chicago working on behalf of Rahm Emanuel. Here is a link showing Head being hugged by coldfish Emanuel. Although he is a third year student, Payton Head is still undeclared, but he is very interested in Social Justice. He has helped with seminars in Columbia, and elsewhere on Social Justice. In these seminars they talk about gender inequities, racial discrimination, same sex relationships, and the whole spectrum of sexual deviancy.

Also, Head’s father Lawrence was a Chicago high school principal apparently fired for performance, who then went on to sue the school system.

Lawrence Head, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Chicago School Reform Board of Trustees, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 99-3408

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Hold on…there is more.

Hat tip again to Breitbart:

OUT

President Obama has made history by becoming the first sitting U.S. president to pose for the cover of an LGBT magazine.

Obama is on the cover of Out magazine’s latest Out 100 issue as the publication’s “Ally of the Year.”

“The 44th President of the United States is our Ally of the Year—a president who came to office on a wave of euphoria, appeared to lose momentum halfway through, and has since rallied, helping us secure marriage equality, among other landmark initiatives that are transforming our place in America,” the editors of Out wrote in an article accompanying the cover.

Obama granted a wide-ranging interview to the LGBT publication, weighing in on his administration’s focus on LGBT rights, the “generational difference” in his daughters’ attitudes toward homosexuality and the role the United States could play in challenging the human rights records of more restrictive regimes in Middle Eastern countries.

Obama told the magazine his fight for equality began “from when I was a kid, because my mom instilled in me the strong belief that every person is of equal worth.”

Obama explained:

At the same time, growing up as a black guy with a funny name, I was often reminded of exactly what it felt like to be on the outside. One of the reasons I got involved in politics was to help deliver on our promise that we’re all created equal, and that no one should be excluded from the American dream just because of who they are. That’s why, in the Senate, I supported repealing DOMA [the Defense of Marriage Act]. It’s why, when I ran for president the first time, I publicly asked for the support of the LGBT community, and promised that we could bring about real change for LGBT Americans.

Obama also said he “wasn’t surprised” by the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges earlier this year, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

“Well, I try not to guess how the Supreme Court is going to rule,” Obama said when asked if he expected the Supreme Court’s decision, adding:

But even before the decision came down, one thing was clear: There had been a remarkable attitude shift — in hearts and minds — across America. The ruling reflected that. It reflected our values as a nation founded on the principle that we are all created equal. And, by the way, it was decades of our brothers and sisters fighting for recognition and equality — and too frequently risking their lives or facing rejection from family, friends, and co-workers — that got us to that moment.

Obama also offered some advice for the “Kim Davises of America.” Davis, a Kentucky court clerk, was briefly jailed earlier this year for refusing to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple, citing her Christian beliefs.

“I am a man of faith and believe deeply in religious freedom, but at the end of the day, nobody is above the rule of law — especially someone who voluntarily takes an oath to uphold that law,” Obama told the magazine. “That’s something we’ve got to respect.”

You can read the rest of President Obama’s interview with Out magazine here. The “Out 100″ issue is on newsstands this month.