The President's Executive Order On Military Health Care Is Too Little Too Late

It's certainly planned, inadvertently ironic, that President Barack Obama chose the 2nd anniversary of the end of the Iraq War to visit Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, to announce an executive order expanding suicide prevention and substance abuse services for veterans.

Jay Carney, White House press secretary, said to reporters aboard Air Force One that the executive order focuses on the "unseen wounds of war."

The Washington Post's Amy Gardner reports that Carney said the focus on "unseen wounds" includes mental-health conditions, such as Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Post Traumatic Stress (PTS), and is the latest evidence Obama is fulfilling that promise.

“We can’t forget,” Carney told reporters, including Gardner. “This country has been engaged in military conflict now for more than 10 years abroad since our first forces went into Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001. A tremendous number of men and women have served in those two countries.”

Needless to say, this appears to be a Band-Aid on, and distraction from the failed war in Afghanistan. Obama's foreign policy has done nothing but make combat operations a bit more messy in the restive country — a move emphasized by the fact that American KIA's in Afghanistan essentially doubled, from 1000 to 2000, over the last 27 months of Obama's presidency.

If the war is what causes the wounds, ending it might be the best form of "prevention." Instead, Obama plans to expand personnel in the Veterans Association, an already convoluted, bureaucratic mess, that can't seem to get out of it's own way.

The same VA that messed up GI-Bill payments in Ohio, prompting military leaders to "encourage" colleges to matriculate veteran students who have insufficient funds, and the same VA which spent millions on a conference, including $52,000 on a video, while veterans toil and navigate through complex phone corridors in an attempt to receive their benefits.

That's the VA which is essential to Obama's new "initiative" to stem the incredible rise of suicides in the military. Suicides due largely to combat stress, brought about by multiple deployments.

By the end of last year, there were 125,000 vets in the Army alone who had deployed three or more times, and to make matters worse, in wars increasingly viewed as illegitimate and pointless.

Under these conditions, even one deployment can be enough.

This executive order is largely just a band aid, Mr. President, the damage has already been done.

Huntley: Look for Obama to give a great speech — but not much else

Here’s one prediction for this week’s Democratic National Convention that is 99 percent certain: President Barack Obama will give a better sounding acceptance speech than Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney did the other day.

Oratory is what Obama does.

It’s too bad he can’t run the country as well as he can deliver a highfalutin’ speech.

Yet, it is amazing that a continual theme of Obama, his supporters and his apologists in the mainstream media is that the president’s problem isn’t his policies but his failure to communicate and explain them to the American people.

Paul Ryan, the GOP vice presidential nominee, absolutely nailed it when he told the Republican National Convention, “Ladies and gentlemen, these past four years we have suffered no shortage of words in the White House. What’s missing is leadership in the White House.”

Obama’s oratory is characterized by a puffed-up grandiosity, and Romney nailed that in his acceptance speech: “President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family.”

Obama’s left-wing media acolytes immediately pounced that Romney was dissing climate change. Nonsense. With 23 million Americans unemployed or under-employed, Romney merely recognized that the here-and-now problems making life miserable for millions of Americans had been neglected by a president who prefers blue-sky rhetoric on climate change to facing the facts about what’s need to revive the economy.

It may not have been as pretty as Obama’s orations, but Romney’s speech, a mix of the personal and policy, was good enough to persuade persuadable voters that he’s qualified to sit in the Oval Office.

Then Romney did something to act presidential. The day after the Tampa convention he flew to Louisiana to assess the storm damage from Hurricane Isaac. Romney said he was there to draw attention to the plight of the victims and relate to the country that they need help.

Guess what? Obama had to play catch-up. Just hours after the White House got word of Romney’s visit to storm victims, it announced Obama was canceling a campaign appearance in Ohio Monday to fly to Louisiana. It sure looks like a presidential responsibility got lost in all the campaigning and fund-raising Obama has been doing of late.

After that embarrassing lapse, Obama will be happy to bask in the spotlight at his party’s convention in Charlotte. The focus will be his speech Thursday night. And there’s little doubt that it will sound better than Romney’s. But Obama will have to explain why four more years of the policies that have failed for the past four years will somehow restore prosperity.

So, yes, Obama will give a soaring speech, filled with beautiful words, mellifluous phrases and glowing sentences sure to send a thrill up the leg of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and other Obama cheerleaders in the left-wing media.

But, will millions of Americans weary of four years of soul-draining economic misery be satisfied with more words from Obama? They just might deliver a verdict on yet another Obama speech that would be, in the words of the famous Bud Lite commercial:

“Great taste, less filling.”

Weakening Isaac hovers over water-logged La.

(CBS/AP) NEW ORLEANS - Isaac hovered over Louisiana for a third day Thursday, shedding more than a foot of additional rain that forced authorities to hurriedly evacuate areas ahead of the storm and rescue hundreds of people who could not escape as the rapidly rising waters swallowed entire neighborhoods.

The huge spiral weather system weakened to a tropical depression as it crawled inland, but it caught many places off guard by following a meandering, unpredictable path. The storm's excruciatingly slow movement meant that Isaac practically parked over low-lying towns and threw off great sheets of water for hours.

As of 4 p.m. CDT, Isaac was moving at north-northwest 12 mph with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph, according to NOAA.

"I was blindsided. Nobody expected this," said Richard Musatchia, who fled his water-filled home in LaPlace, northwest of New Orleans.

Inside the fortified levees that protected New Orleans, bursts of sunshine streamed through the thick clouds, and life began to return to normal. But beyond the city, people got their first good look at Isaac's damage: Hundreds of homes were underwater. Half the state was without power at the one point. Thousands were staying at shelters.

There have been reported fatalities in Plaquemines Parish. CBS News reported Thursday that a chief investigator from the parish coroner's office confirmed that two bodies -- a man and woman believed to be in their 40s -- were found in a home in Braithwaite, Louisiana.

And the damage may not be done. Even more rain was expected in Louisiana before the storm finally drifts into Arkansas and Missouri.

Isaac dumped as much as 16 inches in some areas, and about 500 people had to be rescued by boat or high-water vehicles. At least two deaths were reported.

Five feet of water poured into Musatchia's home before a neighbor passed by with a boat and evacuated him and his 6-year-old boxer, Renny.

He piled two suitcases, a backpack and a few smaller bags onto the boat and said that was all he had left. He abandoned a brand-new Cadillac and a Harley-Davidson.

"People have their generators, because they thought the power would go out, but no one expected" so much water, Musatchia said.

Other evacuees were picked up by National Guard vehicles, school buses and pickup trucks.

Daphine and David Newman fled their newly decorated home with two trash bags of clothing. They have lived in their subdivision since 1992 and never had water in their home from previous storms, not even Hurricane Katrina.

The comparison was common since Isaac hit on the seventh anniversary of the devastating 2005 storm, though the differences were stark.

Katrina was more powerful, coming ashore as a Category 3 storm. Isaac was a Category 1 at its peak. Katrina barreled into the state and quickly moved through. Isaac creeped across the landscape at less than 10 mph and wobbled constantly.

David Newman was frustrated that the government spent billions of dollars reinforcing New Orleans levees after Katrina, only to see the water inundating surrounding regions.

"The water's got to go somewhere," he said. "It's going to find the weakest link."

The sudden call for evacuations so long after the storm made landfall provoked a debate about whether anyone was to blame.

Jefferson Parish Council President Chris Roberts said forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami needed a new way of measuring the danger that goes beyond wind speed.

"The risk that a public official has is, people say, `Aw, it's a Category 1 storm, and you guys are out there calling for mandatory evacuations,"' Roberts said.

Hundreds of people in lower Jefferson chose to ride out the storm -- and many of them had to be rescued, he said.

Eric Blake, a specialist at the hurricane center, said that although Isaac's cone shifted west as it zigzagged toward the Gulf Coast, forecasters accurately predicted its path, intensity and rainfall. He did say the storm came ashore somewhat slower than anticipated.

Blake cautioned against using Katrina as a benchmark for flooding during other storms.

"Every hurricane is different," Blake said. "If you're trying to use the last hurricane to gauge your storm surge risk, it's very dangerous."

Along the shores of Lake Ponchartrain near New Orleans, officials sent scores of buses and dozens of high-water vehicles to help evacuate about 3,000 people as floodwaters lapped against houses and stranded cars.

The water rose waist-high in some neighborhoods, and the Louisiana National Guard worked with sheriff's deputies to rescue people stuck in their homes.

In LaPlace, a Coast Guard helicopter plucked a couple and their dogs from a home after storm surge gushed into their neighborhood and washed many houses away.

"They used a flashlight inside the house as a signaling device, which made all the difference in locating them effectively," Lt. Cmdr. Jorge Porto said.

Crews intentionally breached a levee that was strained by Isaac's floodwaters in southeast Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, which is outside the federal levee system. At the same time, water at a dam farther north in Mississippi was released in an effort to prevent flooding there.

Since the storm arrived in the U.S., the first two fatalities were a tow truck driver hit by a tree that fell on his vehicle in Picayune, Miss., and a man who fell from a tree while helping friends move a vehicle. Deputies did not know why he climbed the tree.

Although New Orleans' bigger, stronger levee system easily handled the deluge from Isaac, rural areas beyond the city's fortifications had few defenses.

Isaac "has reinforced for us once again just how vulnerable these critical areas are," said Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu. "We must re-engage the Corps of Engineers on this."

More than 900,000 homes and businesses around the state -- about 47 percent of all customers -- were without power Thursday. Utility company Entergy said that included about 157,000 in New Orleans.

New Orleans' biggest problems seemed to be downed power lines, scattered tree limbs and minor flooding.

In Mississippi, several coastal communities struggled with all the extra water, including Pascagoula, where a large portion of the city flooded and water blocked downtown intersections.

High water also prevented more than 800 people from returning to their homes in Bay St. Louis, a small town that lost most of its business district to Katrina's storm surge.

Even though Isaac was weaker, Mayor Les Fillingame said, "every storm is somebody's Katrina, regardless of the intensity."

Romney makes Mormonism part of his big night

After years of avoiding direct mention of his religion, Mitt Romney will open up about his Mormon faith as he accepts the Republican nomination for president.

The former Massachusetts governor is the first Mormon presidential candidate on a major party ticket. It's unclear just how much detail he will provide on Thursday night, the pinnacle of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. He has spoken broadly in the past about the importance of prayer and belief in God, but has not discussed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"I think this is a speech where he's going to talk a lot about what's informed his values, what's informed his outlook. Of course his faith is an important part of that," Romney aide Kevin Madden said in Tampa this week. "It's an important part of who he is as a husband and a father. And so I think you can expect some of that."

Starting in the 1980s, Romney was a bishop in the Boston suburb of Belmont, a job akin to the pastor of a congregation. He then served as a stake president, the top Mormon authority in his region, which meant he presided over several congregations in a district similar to a diocese.

He counseled Latter-day Saints on their most personal concerns, regarding marriage, parenting, finances and faith. He worked with immigrant converts from Haiti, Cambodia and other countries.

Grant Bennett, an assistant to Romney at the Belmont congregation, has in the past described how Romney built relationships with other religious groups around his Belmont, Mass., hometown, after a suspicious fire in 1984 destroyed a new Mormon meeting house there.

Bennett told delegates Thursday that Romney had "a listening ear and a helping hand." He said Romney devoted as many as 20 hours a week at his own expense.

Ted and Pat Oparowski, also fellow Mormons, recalled how Romney helped their dying son write his will. And Pam Finlayson, who belonged to Romney's congregation, remembered him stroking the back of her prematurely born daughter during a hospital visit and bringing over Thanksgiving dinner.

Only Bennett used the full name of the church when speaking about Romney's years of service.

Other convention speakers had already laid a foundation for this new faith emphasis. In his acceptance speech Wednesday night, vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, a Roman Catholic, said "our different faiths come together in the same moral creed."

Ann Romney, in a speech meant to show a more personal side of her husband, described the early challenges they faced as a couple, including religious differences. "I was Episcopalian. He was a Mormon," she said. The reference was striking given that the Romneys almost never use the word Mormon on the campaign trail.

Republican evangelicals have been playing down conflict with Latter-day Saints. Most prominently, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, speaking from the podium Wednesday night, said, "I care far less as to where Mitt Romney takes his family to church, than I do about where he takes this country."

Huckabee, a Southern Baptist pastor before he entered politics, had publicly questioned Mormon beliefs when he was competing against Romney in the 2008 presidential primary. Most Christians don't consider Latter-day Saints part of traditional Christianity, although Mormons do.

Romney has struggled to navigate as a member of a religious minority seeking the nation's highest office.

Since Mormons generally live in concentrated communities in the Mountain West and California, few Americans have met a Latter-day Saint. Most Mormons said they were stunned by the open expression of prejudice against their church during Romney's first bid for the White House.

In his 2008 campaign, Romney openly courted evangelicals, who make up about a quarter of the electorate and are a critical part of the Republican base. He stressed the beliefs he shared with Christian conservatives about Christ and the Bible, and he promised he would not be influenced on policy by the leaders of the LDS church. This year, he has done little public outreach with Protestant conservatives and, until now, has largely separated his Mormonism from his campaign.

"He's trying to find the right register, and those around him who advise him are trying to find the right register. Now, it seems, the push is to make him look human, that means emphasizing the admittedly wonderful things he has done in the church to help people," said Laurie Maffly-Kipp, a religion scholar at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, who writes frequently about the LDS church. "The trick is to do that without bringing up the parts of Mormonism that might sound odd to others."

A Gallup poll in June found that voter bias against Mormons has barely budged for decades. In the survey, 18 percent of Americans said they would not vote for a well-qualified presidential candidate who happens to be a Mormon, compared to 17 percent who said so in 1967, when Romney's father George had been seeking the Republican nomination.

However, the campaign clearly felt more confident discussing the LDS Church since Romney sealed the nomination.

Polls indicate that Republican voters are willing to set aside their concerns about the LDS church to oust President Barack Obama. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that a majority of people who know that Romney is Mormon are comfortable with his religion or don't consider it a concern. In the days leading up to the convention, Romney told interviewers he prays daily and discussed the doubts he experienced about his religion when he, like most young Mormon men, fulfilled his church duty to serve as a missionary. Romney served in overwhelmingly Catholic France during the 1960s, and faced hostility as an American and a Mormon.

"I don't think underlying attitudes have changed," said John Green, director of the University of Akron's Bliss Institute for Applied Politics. "I don't think evangelicals are any less skeptical about Mormons, but an election is a choice and Republicans have something to work with here because of the unpopularity of Obama among this group of evangelicals."