A Third Party Review Of Team National - Is It A Good Business Opportunity?

Army launches independent review of PTSD diagnoses

  LOLITA C. BALDORWASHINGTON -- Army leaders said Wednesday they are launching a sweeping, independent review of how the service evaluates soldiers with possible post-traumatic stress disorder following recent complaints that some PTSD diagnoses were improperly overturned.

The Army said it will review the diagnoses at all of its medical facilities going back to October 2001. And top Army leaders said they will develop a plan to correct any decisions or policies necessary to make sure that soldiers are receiving the care and treatment they deserve.

The latest reviews were triggered by revelations that the forensic psychiatry unit at Madigan Army Medical Center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state may have reversed diagnoses based on the expense of providing care and benefits to members of the military.

Over the past several years, the U.S. military has seen a dramatic spike in the number of PTSD and traumatic brain injury cases as the long and deadly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on. The services have struggled to find better ways to monitor their troops, identify the often invisible wounds and beef up treatment both at the battlefront and when they return home.

"We owe it to every soldier to ensure that he or she receives the care they need and deserve," said Army Secretary John McHugh, adding that the Army "must ensure that our processes and procedures are thorough, fair and conducted in accordance with appropriate, consistent medical standards."

The Army review will also scrutinize how well soldiers can participate in the system that assesses their ability to receive medical retirements, including whether the appeal process is adequate and whether any nonmedical factors may affect the diagnosis.

There is also a system-wide review being done by the Army inspector general to determine if psychiatrists overturn PTSD diagnoses to save money. The evaluations are the key first step in determining soldiers' disability benefits.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who heads the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said this is the Army's opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past and ensure that veterans and their families don't need to "wade through an unending bureaucratic process to get proper access to care."

"The bottom line is that the Army needs to fix the inconsistencies we have seen in diagnosing the invisible wounds of war," Murray said. "Out of this review, the Army needs to provide a uniform mental health policy so that service members are given the care they need."

According to Murray, more than 40 percent of the cases since 2007 that involved candidates for retirement had been overturned. During a recent Senate hearing, she said that of the 1,680 patients screened at Madigan, more than 690 had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The psychiatric team there reversed more than 290 of those diagnoses.

On Wednesday, she said that so far, based on the review at Madigan, more than 100 service members have had their PTSD diagnosis returned.

The new Army review will be led by Joseph Westphal, undersecretary of the Army, and Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, the vice chief of staff.

Army officials say soldiers sent to war may be checked up to five times, including before being deployed, during combat, once they return home and six months and a year later. Every soldier returning from deployment completes what the Army calls a post-deployment health assessment and a face-to-face interview with a mental health professional. The Army screens soldiers for depression and PTSD, asking questions to find out about any social stressors, sleep disruption and other problems. Those who are detected as having problems go on to a second phase of screening.

Officials say, however, that no test is considered diagnostically definitive for mental illness in general or PTSD in particular.

More than 134,900 Army personnel were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries between 2000 and 2011. Of those, 75 percent, or more than 100,000, were diagnosed as having a mild or regular concussion. Army policy calls for every service member involved in a blast, vehicle crash or a blow to the head to be medically evaluated.

---
GET THE LATEST NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL NEWS FROM ABCNEWS.COM

---
Get Eyewitness News Delivered

Facebook | Twitter | Newsletters | Text Alerts

(Copyright ©2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) Get more U.S. & World News »

u.s. & world news

View the original article here

Book Review: National Security in the Obama Administration: Reassessing the Bush Doctrine

A Team National Review - Who is Team National?

Griffiths' Sport Supplement Review

Ideal for bodybuilding/fitness sites brand new e-book, complete A-z guide to the 78 most commonly used sport supplements written by Dr P Griffiths. Attractive pitch page, authoritative author, retails at $49.97 & 50% commission.

Check it out!

Team National MLM Home Business Review

Team National Review - What is Team National?

Team National, also sometimes referred to as National Companies, is a debt-free network marketing company (or MLM home business) founded in 1997 by Dick Loehr. Located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the company is a legitimate business as evidenced by their multiple designations and associations: members of the Direct Selling Association (DSA), a Registered Member of Dunn & Bradsteet (D&B), a Member of the US Chamber of Commerce and a Member of the Better Business Bureau of Southeast Florida (BBB), with strong endorsements from people like best selling author & leadership development coach John Maxwell, among others.

The Team National MLM Home Business "Product":

While most MLM home business companies market a product or service to generate revenue, Team National is different in that it markets a membership, saving people money on a wide variety of products and services in over 20 different industries. Since 1997, total membership and product sales is approaching $1 billion.

The idea behind developing a company to provide benefits and services - now called membership savings - came as Dick envisioned an MLM home business program allowing anyone who owns a membership package to enjoy similar discount buying power as a Fortune 500 company. Starting with only a few basic discounts - savings on oil changes and new car purchases - the Team National MLM home business now offers substantial savings on everything from small everyday items (household goods, business supplies, eye-ware, etc) to larger once-in-a-while type items like jewelry, home furnishings and vehicles.

They break up the savings into 4 different divisions:

1. Factory Direct (up to 65% savings on items like jewelry and home furnishings)

2. Group Buying Power - savings on:


New and used cars, parts and service; motorcycles, ATVs, personal watercraft, etc
Financial services - home mortgage, wealth planning, debt management
Health discount benefit plans - vision, dental, hearing, teledoc, chiropractic, etc
Rental Vehicles
Communication & Entertainment Services - long distance, phone, hi-speed internet, satellite, etc
Business savings - credit card processing, check processing, etc
Travel Services
Insurance Services
An exclusive product line - automotive, nutritional supplements, skin care, etc

3. Business Exchange - save at thousands of local and small businesses across the country

4. E-Commerce - up to 30% commissions from over 100 popular and brand-name retail stores with a Team National website

The Team National MLM Home Business Opportunity:

Although the company's membership program clearly demonstrates great value and is rather unique in the industry, distributors - or IMDs (Independent Marketing Directors) as they're referred to - who focus primarily on selling the membership or aspects of the membership in order to get sales will not make much money with Team National. As with all MLM home businesses, MLM and internet home based businesses, creating a long-term, thriving, walk-away residual income requires leverage in the form of team building. By building teams, you're able to leverage your efforts, time, resources and energy to get not just a few membership packages purchased, but rather to get hundreds and thousands of memberships purchased through your network or team from which you receive your override so-to-speak (just like a real estate or insurance broker receives an "override" on the sales of their agents).

The optional earnings (Team National compensation plan) they offer is also one of the better ones in the industry due to the amount of money Team National pays out. This is because the company pays out 72% of the memberships back to the Independent Marketing Directors in the form of commissions and bonuses with their hybrid binary structure. This unusually high compensation amount is due to the fact that there is no product markup or profit margin added onto the price of the membership. The membership value comes from the large volume of Team National members which enables the company to negotiate these savings based on the group's high-volume buying power (similar to a co-op). Each new membership sold doesn't really incur any direct cost to the company (as opposed to companies that are primarily product-based which obviously incur the cost of producing, manufacturing and shipping the products they market). This again is one main advantage Team National has over its rivals in the industry.

Highlights of the Team National MLM Home Business compensation plan:

As discussed previously, the Team National business model as with most network marketing companies, pays out the most for those who build teams (which in turn gets more memberships purchased). Using their hybrid-binary structure, they pay out between $25-$100 for every membership sale. In addition, Team National has created a points system where on average 4 membership sales in each leg of the binary will produce a $1,500 check as often as weekly (see compensation plan for exact details). This is strong compensation and as your team grows you earn additional legs (paycenters they call them) which each pays out an additional $2,500 when on average 4 sales are made on each of the paycenter's 2 legs. This can add up to substantial income for the serious business builder.

Again, it is crucial that when building a business with Team National you focus on leveraging your efforts through team building rather than putting on a salesman hat and trying to solely sell memberships. When you compare $25-$100 a sale to even $1,500 a week for virtually the same effort through team building it becomes rather obvious.

So how does someone in Team National go about building a profitable, income-producing team?

First, you must have a system in place to help you seek out and find qualified business partners to present the Team National business opportunity to. You can do this by just talking to people you know, or you can work your MLM home business smarter by leveraging the power of tools like the internet to help you find and sort through a virtually endless supply of potential prospects actively looking for an opportunity like the Team National MLM home business provides. Work smarter to multiply your results and income and get your business in front of more people to make more money (it's all a numbers game after all) or continue doing what you've always done if you want to continue to get the same results.

Don't miss out on the huge momentum and fortunes being created today in the MLM home business industry.

If you're new to the industry or have never marketed online before, let me point you in the right direction so you can begin getting the word out about your business and start attracting people to you like a Top Earner to get some of that momentum going in your direction.

Learn more about how you can create your very own custom Team National sales funnel to build your residual income business and start leveraging the power of the internet to sign up more people, brand YOU as a leader and earn bigger checks faster by visiting this site now: MLM advertising.

A Review on Fukuyama's "Nation-Building"

Francis Fukuyama who is best known as the author of The End of History and the Last Man is the director of the International Development Program at the Johns Hopkins University. Fukuyama is his latest book "Nation- Building" gathers a number of essay all written in a way related to US desire of nation-building. We will consider the essays by himself (Introduction), David Ekbladh, francis X. Sutton and Minxin Pei and Samia Amin.

"I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation-building. I think our troops ought to be used to fight and win war". (October 11, 2000)

"I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history, and find their own way". (May 24, 2004)

Fukuyama started his introduction by Bush's claim on that they do not plan for nation-building in Iraq and they are over there just to free people of Iraq and not to tell them how to decide for themselves. He then mentions the transformation in Bush's policies over nation-building and comparing the Democrats and Republicans on this issue. "Conservatives have always been skeptical about nation-building as a kind of international social welfare, whereas liberals have seen the efforts to create a democratic Iraq as an extension of the American empire".Both Democrats and Republicans are making efforts for nation-building at different times; " Conservatives as part of the "war on terrorism" and liberals for the sake of humanitarian intervention".

US international nation-building strategies have intensified and expanded in the post-Cold war era. American nation-building has a long history in US foreign policy as david Ekbladh, Francis X. Sutton, and Pei also wrote in their essays, although it has raised after 1989 rapidly. In line with many people in countries that are under US nation-building process, Europeans as well do criticise America's nation-building. "Europeans often criticize American for the use of the term nation-building, reflecting as it does the specifically American experience of constructing a new political order in a land of new settlement without deeply rooted peoples, cultures, and traditions". Europeans believe such nations will never be built.

According to him nation-building has two process; reconstruction and development. Reconstruction means restoration of "war-torn societies" and development indicates promotion of new institutions and economic condition. US had several experiences of nation-building after Civil war like in Philippines and Caribbean. Yet, institution learning for Americans was so low and they forgot their experiences and pitfalls in their other projects especially after Bush administration. "Unfortunately, few of the officials responsible for the Iraq reconstruction had personal experience with these earlier efforts".

He then compare the nation-building process in Iraq and Afghanistan and concludes that US made a big mistake in Iraq, considering it an easy task to perform.

Daivd Ekladh mostly talks about the post-war career of nation-building in US foreign relations. "David Ekbladh demonstrates the self-confidence of Americans in their ability to help poor countries develop was quite high soon after World war II and then during the Vietnam war". Many US policymakers and actors would consider nation-building a collective activity after World War II. Many nongovernmental organizations, private business and international organizations and institutions were US ganets in this realm of reconstruction and development in the other countries. Foreign aid programs had evolution like USAID with the "mobilization of such private resources by the US government". Even some US universities, such as Michigan State, University were active to help US reach its goal in nation-building in places like Vietnam. "taken as a whole, the Voetnam era was the "perfect storm" to rearrange not only the key institution in US but also the basic goal of development aid".

Sutton in line with other essay discusses the role of some corporations in US nation-building process. Ford is specifically examined. Pei claims the US is the greatest nation-builder among western countries; 200 cases of the use of force by the United States since 1900 from 17 are certainly done for nation-building. There are three elements by which military intervention and nation-building efforts are distinguished: first, is the practical effort of the US intervention to change regimes; second is the deployment of large numbers of US ground troops- as the case of Guatemala in 1954- and the last element is the use of civilian personnel in the administration of the target countries. Establishing democratic regimes by election constitute another important phase of US nation-building process.

Michele A. Flournoy shows the reader another dimension of this process; the unlearned lessons of the US administration. Bush administration was poorly noticing the experiences US had before and committed very repeated mistakes in the Iraq and Afghanistan. He review some the lessons that Clinton thought the US learned from its nation-building. Having comprehensive strategy, control arrangements, and public support are the most important factor.

After all, all essayist meant that US in its nation-building process in Iraq and Afghanistan- especially Iraq- made several mistakes that it could prevent.

Currently, MA Student in American Studies, university of Tehran. I did my BA in English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, university of Tehran. I am mostly interested in American history, foreign policy and Hollywood.

Pentagon: No quick review of bin Laden photos' bid

Osama bin Laden was born into one of Saudi Arabia's most prosperous families, but he left home in search of revolution, found a path of fanaticism, inspired a murderous organization that terrorized the West, and ultimately became the most wanted man in the world. The most intense manhunt in history finally caught up with bin Laden, whose money and rageful preaching inspired the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which killed almost 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, and ripped a hole in America's sense of security in the world. Bin Laden, 54, was killed in an operation led by the United States on Sunday, May 1, 2011, touching off scenes of jubilation at the site of the World Trade Center, in Washington and elsewhere. A small team of Americans carried out the attack early Monday in Pakistan, and took custody of bin Laden's remains, which were quickly buried at sea. (ABCNews Photo)

  Eyewitness NewsWASHINGTON -- The Defense Department is refusing to do a speedy review of a Freedom of Information Act request for graphic photos of Osama bin Laden's corpse, setting the stage for a protracted battle over access to the images.

In a letter to The Associated Press, the department said the AP did not demonstrate an urgent or compelling need for the photos or show that the information has a particular value that would be lost if not provided in an expedited manner. As a result, it is not clear when or if the photos will be provided.

The AP received the letter Friday, 11 days after it requested the photos and other material stemming from the May 2 raid by a team of Navy SEALs on bin Laden's compound in Pakistan.

The AP often asks for accelerated review of FOIA requests related to unfolding stories of high interest and said there is a compelling need for prompt release of the bin Laden photos because they could add to the public's understanding about what took place during the raid.

President Barack Obama has promised to make his administration the most transparent in American history. The push by the AP and other news organizations to make the bin Laden photos public could put that commitment to a key test.

In 2010, the Defense Department granted expedited processing of FOIA requests nearly 40 percent of time, a far better rate than agencies such as the departments of State and Homeland Security.

Whether the photos should be made public has been a constant source of debate since the stunning announcement of bin Laden's death. Obama decided last week not to release the death photos of bin Laden so as not to "spike the football" and possibly inflame anti-American sentiment overseas.

U.S. government officials have described the photos as gruesome. Bin Laden was killed by two bullets, with the fatal shot going through his head.

Dan Metcalfe, executive director of the Collaboration on Government Secrecy at American University's Washington College of Law, said it would be difficult for the government to label death photos of bin Laden as classified unless there were a person or a piece of equipment in the photo that needed to be kept secret.

"It's hard to see how such a photo in and of itself could properly be classified, and with that decision ultimately sustained in court, on the basis of national security harm," said Metcalfe, former head of the Justice Department's Office of Information and Privacy.

Members of the House and Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees have been allowed to see the death photos in a secure room at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Lawmakers are not permitted to take copies of the photos with them.

Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, viewed the photos Wednesday and said one of them showed brain matter coming out of bin Laden's eye socket. Others, however, were taken as the body was being prepared for burial at sea and are less jarring, said Inhofe, who favors releasing at least a few photos to dispel any claims bin Laden wasn't killed.

The disclosure that the photos were at CIA headquarters could mean the spy agency and not the Pentagon controls the records. The AP has also filed a Freedom of Information request with the CIA that seeks expedited processing. The CIA has not said how it will handle that request.

The Defense Department's decision not to expedite the AP's request for the photos isn't a rejection but puts the request on a much slower track. Under the open records law, federal agencies have 20 days to respond to FOIA requests, a deadline that is rarely met.

In a related development, Judicial Watch, a public interest group, filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Defense Department on Friday after the department said it would not meet the 20-day deadline for meeting the group's own request for the photos.

"The American people have a right to know, by law, basic information about the killing of Osama bin Laden. Incredibly, the Obama administration told us that it has no plans to comply with the Freedom of Information law, so we must now go to court," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) AP-NY-05-14-11 1140EDT

(Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
Get more U.S. & World News »

osama bin laden, barack obama, afghanistan, pakistan, u.s. & world news

View the original article here