There is plenty of things that can be improved with the VA disability system, but I do not think there will be much consensus to do so until the much larger SSI disability problems are addressed:

The room fell silent for seven minutes as Illinois Rep. Tammy Duckworth upbraided a government contractor.
“Shame on you,” the congresswoman scolded Braulio Castillo at an oversight hearing in Washington, D.C., last year, accusing the business owner of gaming the veterans disability system.
Castillo had filed a claim with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs after learning that a disability rating would give his technology company preferential standing for federal contracts.
His disability: A foot injury suffered playing football at the U.S. Military Preparatory Academy in 1984.
Though the injury didn’t prevent him from going on to play quarterback at the University of San Diego, the VA rated him 30% disabled — good for $450 a month, tax-free.
Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost both legs in Iraq in 2004 when her helicopter was shot down, noted that her severely damaged right arm was rated only 20%.
“You, who never picked up a weapon in defense of this great nation, very cynically took advantage of the system,” she said. “You broke the faith with this nation.”
Duckworth directed her ire at Castillo, but the real culprit was the broad eligibility criteria of the disability system itself. The contractor had played by the rules for benefits and, as many Washington lawmakers know, those benefits cover ailments from sports injuries to bullet wounds, resulting in disability payouts that totaled $58 billion this fiscal year — up from $49 billion last year.
Routinely criticized in government reviews as out of touch with modern concepts of disability, the system has strayed far from its official purpose of compensating veterans for their lost earning capacity.( LA Times)

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes news that the Korean left is trying to re-stoke this old issue to bash USFK with:

The city estimated that polluted water near the Yongsan Garrison and Camp Kim came to 1,870 tons and 100 tons, respectively.

City officials noted that benzene, toluene and xylene among other chemicals were found in the underground water system.

Despite the capital pumping nearly 2,000 tons of contaminated water since 2001, pollutants were found to have remained in drainage water from the bases.

The discovery of pollutants is increasing concerns about waste disposal at U.S. bases, already heightened by concerns of possible Agent Orange contamination at camps in Korea.

Officials reiterated the urgency of preventing pollutants from entering the Hangang River. (Korea Herald)

You can read more at the link but the so called environmentalists are also bashing camps that are no longer even being turned over like Camp Casey and Camp Hovey. First of all there is going to be pollution on camps that are decades old and housed military equipment. This is not news. Secondly these studies in the past have been sensationalized by including lead contamination from rifle ranges and oil from new asphalt as pollution. They even claimed that people had to wear decontamination suits to go on Camp Kyle which I proved was false.

A lot of this issue comes down money.
When the base handover agreements were completed by the Roh Moo-Hyun government, they agreed to take the land including all buildings and infrastructure at no cost. Further cleanup efforts beyond what the United States already has done is supposed to be handled by the ROK. So on this issue the left gets to bash USFK again while the government can use this issue to get more money from the U.S. To pay for base clean up.

#ParkShinHye models classic Bruno Magli http://t.co/thE6x6vXlq pic.twitter.com/LfFDBIzNFG

— DramaFever (@dramafever) November 18, 2014

It will be interesting to see how this turns out:

After almost seven hours of testimony Monday, the Article 32 hearing for a senior Army National Guard officer charged with knowingly exposing a woman to HIV by having unprotected sex will continue into Tuesday.

Col. Jeffrey Pounding, a Special Forces officer who is currently assigned as the deputy director of the National Guard Bureau’s strategic plans and policy directorate (J-5), faces one charge each of assault, adultery and conduct unbecoming an officer.
The woman who is accusing Pounding of exposing her to HIV said their relationship began when they were both at Texas A&M University, where he was an Army fellow. ( Army Times)

You can read more at the link, but if it is proven this Colonel knowingly gave her HIV I would hope that would lead to jail time.

Armed carriers get out of a Navy vessel on a beach in Pohang City, North Gyeongsang Province, on Nov. 18, 2014, as part of the Hoguk exercise involving the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps against North Korea’s possible provocations. (Yonhap)

Breaking promises like this was bound to happen with all the officers being kicked out of the Army:

About 40 officers selected for involuntary separation this spring will be ineligible to attend graduate school on the Army’s dime, as initially promised.

Early in their careers, these officers signed contracts agreeing to serve three additional years on active duty in exchange for the Army paying for their master’s degree. As part of the program, called the graduate school option, or GRADSO, soldiers are eligible to attend school while still on active duty and still receiving pay and benefits. After graduating, they are required to serve three days for every one day enrolled in school.
About 40 officers who signed the contracts now find themselves among 1,100 captains selected for involuntary separation as part of an ongoing Army drawdown to reach an end-strength of 490,000 by Sept. 30, 2015.
One of these captains, who asked that his name be withheld for fear it would hurt his civilian career, said he will have served 34 of the 36-month-service obligation that should have enabled him to cash in with an Army-paid-for degree. (Army Times)

You can read more at the link, but the argument can probably be made these officers did not keep their side of the bargain by not being high performers that would have prevented them from being cut. Bottom line is that expect more situations like this if the Army due to sequestration continues to make cuts.

.@timothy_stanley: Matt Taylor's shirt and the day political correctness officially went mad http://t.co/gep6JJuVz7 pic.twitter.com/7XgQQwW2QE

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) November 15, 2014

Foreigners join a traditional Korean wrestling competition, or ssireum, at an event in Gimcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, on Nov. 14, 2014. (Yonhap)

Interesting interview in the Wall Street Journal from US intelligence chief James Clapper in regards to his trip to North Korea to get the two detained Americans released:

At 3 p.m. last Saturday, a North Korean official went to the State Guesthouse in Pyongyang to instruct U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and his small team to pack their bags. On a secret mission to secure the freedom of two Americans imprisoned by the regime, Mr. Clapper thought at that moment that he might be sent home empty-handed.

Instead, he emerged from the trip with the Americans in his custody. He also got a glimpse into a closed country the U.S. has for years struggled to understand. He is the only U.S. intelligence official ever invited to North Korea.

Mr. Clapper revealed details of the trip in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. The North Koreans seemed disappointed when he arrived without a broader peace overture in hand, he said. At the same time, they didn’t ask for anything specific in return for the prisoners’ release.

U.S. officials say the mission, which few officials within the Obama administration knew about until Mr. Clapper was returning, wasn’t meant to signal any change in the U.S.’s approach to the reclusive North.

Mr. Clapper’s earlier conversations with older North Korean officials on his one-day trip had been contentious. He heard what he called a far more “tempered” tone from a younger North Korean whom he described as an interlocutor and who accompanied him on the 40-minute drive back to the airport at the trip’s end. He said the interlocutor expressed regret that the North and South remained split and asked Mr. Clapper if he’d return to Pyongyang. (Wall Street Journal)

You can read more at the link, but Clapper’s revelation about the younger North Korean in the article I am surprised by because it could get this person in trouble with his superiors if he was not supporting the regime narrative.

I also found of interest the fact that Clapper never spoke with Bae or Miller while flying back on the airplane. I bet he was probably disgusted with what they had done to put the U.S. Government in such a position to get them released.

The interview with North Korean defector Yeon-mi Park I featured here on ROK Drop last month.  Here testimony ended up getting a lot of international attention and now the North Koreans have brought out their biggest western apologists to claim she is a liar in regards to her testimony of seeing dead bodies in North Korean rivers: