WHITEWATER, WI (11/19/2015)-- The No. 6 ranked University of Wisconsin-Whitewater football team begins its quest for a third consecutive national championship this Saturday, Nov. 21, at 12 p.m. at Perkins Stadium against St. Norbert.

The Warhawks (9-1 overall), who are ranked sixth by D3football.com and eighth by the American Football Coaches Association, will make their 10th postseason appearance in the last 11 years. The team earned one of six at-large, or Pool C, bids to the national tournament.

UW-Whitewater has won the Stagg Bowl national championship game in six of the last eight years. The program is making its 13th appearance in the NCAA Playoffs all time.

St. Norbert (10-0) earned an automatic bid after winning the Midwest Conference title. The Green Knights are making their 12th appearance in the NCAA Division III Playoffs, including their 11th over the last 17 years.

The two teams last faced each other in the first round of the 2013 Playoffs. The Warhawks posted a 31-7 victory at Perkins Stadium.

The winner of Saturday's contest will take on the winner of Lakeland and No. 5 Wheaton (Ill.) in the second round on Saturday, Nov. 28. Game time and location will be announced Nov. 22.

The following student-athletes from your coverage area are members of the UW-Whitewater football team:

Vince Klim of Bettendorf (52722), majoring in Entrepreneurship.

Elliot Klim of Bettendorf (52722), majoring in Finance.

For more than 140 years, UW-Whitewater has provided students with the education and training to begin their careers with a solid foundation behind them. The UW-Whitewater is committed to the development of the individual, the growth of personal and professional integrity and respect for diversity and global perspectives. These are met by providing academic and co-curricular programs that emphasize the pursuit of knowledge and understanding and a commitment to service within a safe and secure environment.

Today is the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout. For the last 40 years smokers across the country have set today as their day to quit or to make a plan to quit for good.

Few things are harder to do than quitting smoking, but planning makes it possible.

Check out some tips for quitting.

Of course it's not just smokers who need to worry about tobacco's harmful effects. It's also our state's casinos workers.

We need to make sure every worker in Iowa can celebrate next year's Great American Smokeout in a smoke-free workplace.

Here's to making a plan, sticking to it, and kicking the addiction. Share this story and help us #changethoddsIA for casino workers and smokers alike.

New Economic Opportunities Created for Businesses and Residents

WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, 2015 - USDA Rural Utilities Service Administrator Brandon McBride today announced that nearly six million Americans who live and work in rural areas now have access to new or improved high-speed internet service, thanks to USDA funding provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

"I am proud to announce today that all of the active projects USDA has financed through the Recovery Act are now providing broadband service in rural areas nationwide," McBride said. "In 2009, the Obama Administration pushed for, and Congress provided USDA with, an unprecedented level of funding and five years to connect rural areas to high-speed networks. Bringing broadband to these areas is having a tremendous impact on rural communities. This access means more jobs, better education and a higher quality of life. The economic viability of rural America, like all of America, depends on access to broadband."

Two hundred fifty-four Recovery Act broadband projects financed by USDA's Rural Utilities Service totaling $2.9 billion are providing broadband service in 44 states and American Samoa. More than half the infrastructure projects were completed under budget, resulting in the return of nearly $113 million to the U.S. Treasury. The measure's five-year period for funding broadband projects expired at the end of the 2015 fiscal year.

These projects have brought high-speed Internet access to 260,000 rural households, 17,500 businesses and 1,900 community facilities. The service providers estimate that completed projects could provide access for more than 5.8 million rural consumers.

In Burnsville, N.C., Country Cablevision now provides 2,000 homes with broadband speeds of up to 100 megabytes per second. Businesses can receive up to 1 gigabit per second. The new service allows troops overseas to have live video connections with their friends and families, and it makes it easier for virtual visits at the local nursing home.

In Scott County, Tenn., 21,000 households now benefit from broadband because of USDA Recovery Act financing provided to the Highland Telephone Cooperative. Residents have compared the service improvements to "going from a gravel road to the interstate." Students now earn college degrees online, and businesses operate faster and more efficiently.

Building broadband infrastructure in rural and remote areas can be challenging. In communities in Bristol Bay and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska, for example, cable was pulled by hand under a frozen river to make broadband available to Native Alaskan villages for the first time. As a result, area residents now have expanded access to health care services.

While Congress instructed USDA to improve rural broadband access as part of a sweeping set of infrastructure investments funded through the Recovery Act, USDA is financing additional expansions to rural broadband service through other annual funding.

"We've accomplished a great deal as a result of the Recovery Act funding," McBride noted. "But we still have more to do. Too many rural Americans are still living on the wrong side of the digital divide. USDA is committed to bridging that divide by getting more rural Americans online at work, at school and at home." According to the Federal Communications Commission, only 47 percent of people who live and work in rural areas have access to high-speed internet, compared to 90 percent of those who live and work in urban and metropolitan areas.

President Obama's plan for rural America has brought about historic investment and resulted in stronger rural communities. Under the President's leadership, these investments in housing, community facilities, businesses and infrastructure have empowered rural America to continue leading the way - strengthening America's economy, small towns and rural communities.

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Kirk Leads Bipartisan Group of Senators in Introducing VA Patient Protection Act

S. 2291 Forces VA to Address Reports of Patient Abuse, Punish Those Who Retaliate Against Whistleblowers

Bill Protects VA Employees Who Protect Veterans

WASHINGTON - U.S. Senators Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) today announced the introduction of the bipartisan VA Patient Protection Act (S. 2291) to force the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to address reports of abuse of veteran patients and to punish VA managers who ignore, intimidate and retaliate against whistleblowers. The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee (SVAC) today held a hearing on S. 2291 several other VA reform bills.

"This bill protects our veterans by protecting those who care for them," Senator Kirk said. "By giving whistleblowers like Germaine Clarno and Dr. Lisa Nee a voice, we can end the VA's culture of corruption and make sure our veterans are never again treated like second-class citizens."

"This bipartisan bill provides critical protection to whistleblowers who uncover wrongdoing-- misconduct that often victimizes veterans and squanders taxpayer dollars," said SVAC Ranking Member Blumenthal. "All too often VA managers have sought to intimidate or punish public servants who disclose important information about health care delays, fraudulent record-keeping or other issues. Whistleblowers literally speak truth to power, and need and deserve protection against reprisal or retaliation."

"Whistleblowers are heroes," Senator Grassley said. "They ought to be celebrated, not ignored, sidelined or fired.  Whistleblowers were critical in exposing the VA scandals, and they're critical to fixing what's wrong at the agency. The independent Office of Special Counsel has vindicated many VA whistleblowers so far. Our bill will protect the employees who are going out on a limb to make the agency work for veterans."

"Our veterans deserve to have confidence that VA hospital staff have no one but the patient's best interest in mind when they spot a problem, and VA employees shouldn't have to fear retaliation for standing up and advocating for the veterans they serve," said Senator Gillibrand. "This legislation would help ensure VA employees who stand up for veterans don't have to fear punishment and retaliation for doing what's right for their patients."

"As the events at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Wisconsin have illustrated, when VA whistleblowers are punished for reporting wrongdoing, it can dramatically affect the care provided to our nation's veterans," Senator Johnson said. "There must be zero tolerance within the VA for whistleblower retaliation. The transparency and information that whistleblowers provide is essential to ensuring the highest quality of care for the finest among us."

"More must be done to change the status quo. We must work to build a VA that embraces, rather than retaliates against, whistleblowers who want to improve the system," Senator Baldwin said. "We need to ensure that whistleblowers are empowered and this bipartisan reform legislation will hold the VA managers accountable for unacceptable retaliation and intimidation. Most importantly, it will improve the VA so veterans can get the care and services they need and deserve."

In order to address the challenges faced by VA employees who stand up for veterans, and to punish the managers who retaliate against whistleblowers, the VA Patient Protection Act:

• Punishes retaliation. After the first offense of retaliation, a supervisor will receive a minimum 12-day suspension. On the second offense, they will be fired.

• Holds supervisors accountable. Supervisors' performance ratings will be tied to how they respond to and deal with whistleblower reports and complaints.

• Protects whistleblowers. The Whistleblower Protection Act will be expanded to prevent retaliation against VA doctors and nurses through performance reports. All VA employees will receive training about their rights as whistleblowers.

• Ensures complaints are handled properly. Mirroring the Marine Corps Request Mast, employees who report misconduct can go to the next level supervisor if their immediate supervisor fails to properly handle their complaint. Establishing a formal complaint process ensures there is a paper trail to hold the VA accountable.

Since the VA scandal broke last year, Senator Kirk has heard from current and former workers at the Edward Hines, Jr., VA Hospital in Illinois about practices that harm veterans. These whistleblowers - including Germaine Clarno, a social worker at Hines and president of the AFGE Local 781, and Dr. Lisa Nee, a former Hines cardiologist who experienced retaliation from VA officials after reporting a backlog of hundreds of unread echocardiogram tests and unnecessary surgeries - have faced retaliation and intimidation from VA officials, and their calls to improve care for veterans have been ignored.

As chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs (MilCon/VA), Senator Kirk recently held a field hearing in Chicago in which Clarno and Dr. Nee testified about the retaliation, patient abuse and manipulated scheduling practices at Hines VA.

Reports of systemic misconduct and retaliation against whistleblowers are common across the nation, including:

• Dr. Katherine Mitchell, who first broke the VA wait list scandal, testified before the Senate MilCon/VA Appropriations Subcommittee about how she disclosed improper staffing in the emergency department and secret waitlists at the Phoenix VA. Management retaliated against Dr. Mitchell by removing her as the emergency department director.

• A doctor at Hines VA fraudulently inflated his productivity by entering service codes for work he did not perform - an allegation substantiated by the VA's Office of Medical Inspection - but is still employed at Hines and has not been disciplined.

• After a VA employee in Louisiana discovered secret wait lists and filed complaints with the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG), the OIG failed to investigate the wait lists, but sent criminal investigators to investigate the whistleblower by looking into how he obtained the wait lists, confiscating computer equipment and asking him to submit to a lie detector test.

• Instead of investigating reports of a Puerto Rico VA hospital director's misconduct, the VA sought to remove the employee who reported the misconduct. When the privacy officer concluded the whistleblower had not made an unauthorized disclosure, the VA sought to remove her as well.

• A VA employee in Wisconsin who reported improper disclosures of veterans' health information was fired for sending an email - to report the misconduct - that contained personal information about a veteran.

• A nurse at a VA in Delaware who disclosed improper treatment of opiate addiction faced retaliation in the form of a 14-day suspension for minor allegations of misconduct.

• A VA employee in Wisconsin filed for whistleblower protection after being asked to falsify attendance records. Two weeks later, he resigned citing harassment and further disclosed problems with opioid over-prescription.

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International Adoption Hearing Highlights Concerns of Families

WASHINGTON - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley today said that many families are rightly confused and frustrated with the adoption situations in several countries around the world.

Members of the Judiciary Committee listened to emotional testimony during a committee hearing about the difficulties families are having adopting children internationally.  Grassley held the hearing in honor of National Adoption Month and to raise awareness about these families' situations.  Dr. Rick Wilkerson from Spencer, Iowa, testified at the hearing.  He discussed his family's experience adopting a child from Haiti following the country's earthquake in 2010.  The Wilkerson family has adopted several children both domestically and internationally.

"American families have opened their hearts and homes to children from around the world, but despite the successes and the positive impacts of international adoption, there are also challenges.  There have been barriers for some families as other countries face internal conflicts and struggles," Grassley said.  "These children make families even stronger.  So highlighting the difficulties they are encountering and promoting good public policy in this area is in the country's best interest."

In today's hearing, Grassley highlighted the struggles that more than 400 families are currently facing in bringing home children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The adoptions have been finalized by the home country as well as the United States, yet, despite the fact that the parents must provide financially and emotionally for their children who are physically in the Congo, they cannot bring them home.  Grassley has contacted the State Department regarding the matter on behalf of the Iowa families.  He has written repeatedly to Congolese officials to do everything possible to resolve the issue.

After today's committee hearing, Grassley and other members of the Senate met with the Congolese ambassador to the United States to discuss the adoption issue and a way forward for these families, all of whom simply need immigration travel documents from the Congolese government to bring home the children.

Grassley has championed several policy initiatives that help families overcome some of the roadblocks that make it difficult to bring a child into a permanent home.  His work includes the expansion of the federal adoption tax credit, which is now permanent and indexed to inflation, as well as authorship of several pieces of legislation that improve the ability of children to secure permanent homes.

Grassley is also the co-founder and co-chair of the bipartisan Senate Caucus on Foster Youth which works to raise public awareness and educate policymakers about the challenges facing foster youth, especially those who age out of the system with no long-term support structure in place.

 

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