SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Pentagon recently asked nearly 10,000 soldiers to repay excessive bonuses they were given for re-enlisting in the California National Guard between 2007 and 2009 amid the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress was notified of the problem in 2014, but representatives failed to pass a provision that would allow the Defense Secretary to waive the repayments.
Some representatives claim that the California National Guard failed to convey the scale of the repayments issue or make it a congressional priority. An outraged and bipartisan group of legislators have called for quick action and full forgiveness of the overpayments (estimated to be around $70 million). On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and President Obama have promised to resolve the issue, even as officials acknowledge that the issue may extend to other states:
President Obama has told the Defense Department to expedite its review of nearly 10,000 California National Guard soldiers who have been ordered to repay enlistment bonuses improperly given a decade ago, but he is not backing growing calls for Congress to waive the debts, the White House said Tuesday. The comments by White House spokesman Josh Earnest suggest the administration is running into legal and policy roadblocks as it struggles to handle a public relations headache for the Pentagon, the National Guard and members of Congress who were caught off guard by the scope of the problem.
[...] California Guard officials say they informed California lawmakers about the scale of the debts in 2014, telling them in a list of legislative priorities sent to each House office and the House Armed Services Committee that "thousands of soldiers have inadvertently incurred debt, through no fault of their own because of faulty Army recruiting or accounting practices."
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 28 2016, @01:11AM
If you placed value on being accurate, you could not accept the policies of the political group called conservative in the modern US.
Indeed. I wrote:
Second, the label of conservative has no real meaning here.
I don't buy that there is a viable grouping which is covered by the label of "conservative". I don't consider the label more serious than any sports team affiliation, especially given that many of the people who don't fall under the label are quite conservative in outlook. The Precautionary Principle, for example, is an enormously conservative principle.
Moving on
I'll go further. I know of NO political party that places much value on being accurate or which practices accuracy. NONE! It doesn't sell well.
I guess that rules out me being a political party doesn't it? But if you think about it, a political party is about interests not accuracy. Thus, it's subject to the usual adversarial argument rules.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday October 28 2016, @06:59PM
It's too bad you can't mod an unmodified comment at underrated, or I would have so modified your comment. Nothing else seems appropriate.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.