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POPSBlackwater:Ain't Misbehaving, Saving My Contracts for You
Of course the US government was blind to this - they didn't want to know, they turned a blind eye to what Blackwater was doing because it would have been too hard to arrange for another contractor to do all the security missions that it had ongoing. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, there are as many private contractors as there are uniformed military personnel. Most of them are not security guards as Blackwater's most visible function was. The lack of oversight is abhorrent but not surprising; the State Dept's failure to can this company is inexcusable. My only observation on this article is to suggest how the US government got into this predicament, and it's pretty easy to see. The Bush administration wanted to hold onto the fiction of a few conservative principles, one of those being the concept of a small federal government. Since it already blew that "principle" with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, I'm betting there was White House guidance that directed "no mo
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POPSOur Tax Dollars At Work-Blackwater
More from the article as follows: "The Nisour Square shooting was the bloodiest and most controversial episode involving Blackwater in the Iraq war. At midday on Sept. 16, 2007, a Blackwater convoy opened fire on Iraqi civilians in the crowded intersection, spraying automatic weapons fire in ways that investigators later claimed was indiscriminate, and even launching grenades into a nearby school. Seventeen Iraqis were killed and dozens more were wounded." "Those responses deeply worried Blackwater officials. Before the Nisour Square shootings, the company had operated in Iraq without a license largely because the Iraqi government had never enforced the rules. Being blocked from the country would have been costly — the State Department deal was Blackwater’s single biggest contract. From 2004 through today, the company has collected more than $1.5 billion for its work protecting American diplomats and providing air transportation for them inside Iraq." "
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POPSFighting Fraud
To put it into perspective, ACORN received about $53 million of federal funding over the past 15 years. Meanwhile, Blackwater, the private military contractor to which the U.S. government has farmed out security duties, may owe the government as much as $55 million for allegedly failing to fulfill the terms of one of its federal contracts. Yet Blackwater (now known as Xe), a company that has five of its employees facing murder charges in a massacre of Iraqi civilians in 2007, got a $217 million contract from the Obama administration to provide security in Iraq. The former Haliburton subsidiary, KBR, got $80 million in contract bonuses to provide electrical wiring in Iraq -- wiring that has fatally electrocuted 16 soldiers and two contractors. They haven’t been defunded by Congress. According to the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, the biggest three defense contractors -- Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman -- have been cited 109 times for misconduct since 199
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POPSMysterious Private Security Firm Gets Control Of Empty Jail In Small Montana Town This is what happens when a town is desperate for money and they have no qualms about selling their soul to a renegade paramilitary force. APF plans to build a training facility “where law enforcement will get sniper training and learn "DNA analysis" skills”. APF refuses to divulge the source of the $30 million that will be used to fund this endeavor. According to their Blackwater-esque website http://www.americanpolicegroup.com/special.html they will be capable of providing training for all types of law enforcement organizations. It seems all those rumors of the ‘coming police state’ have just received another reason to ‘validate’ their fears. http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/nwocomingpoliceindex.shtml http://www.etherzone.com/2005/rose101705.shtml http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/171541-the-coming-police-state http://www.davidicke.com/content/view/26440
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POPS500,000 plastic coffins on a Georgia highway "At present there are 800 FEMA prison camps across the USA. Each has the capacity of holding 20,000 citizens. I say citizens because they will be used against us, my friend. They are presently armed with guards and there is rail-road access and airport to some and roads leading directly to the prisons. The beds are concrete. You do the math. People get ready, there's a storm a comin'. " Note the date, this came before swine flu propaganda, there are now many more.
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POPSExposed: American Police Force (APF) Is A Blackwater Front Group If you only read one thing today make it this. APF is Blackwater!! Xe Services LLC is the new name of Blackwater USA. In addition, the U.S. Training Center contact page carries the exact same address. PO Box 1029 Moyock, NC 27958 The U.S. Training Center is run by Blackwater. Indeed, The U.S. Training Center website, can be accessed via Blackwater’s forwarding URL at http://www.blackwaterusa.com/. According to a February 2009 NY Times article, the U.S. Training Center is a Blackwater “subsidiary that conducts much of the company’s overseas operations and domestic training.” Blackwater changed the name of the facility from its old title, Blackwater Lodge and Training Center, earlier this this when they also changed their own name to “Xe”.
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POPSBlackwater in the Phillipines: Murder for Hire In February 2009, Blackwater changed its name to "Xe," (pronounced like the letter "Z"), as part of a "re-branding" effort aimed at helping the company distance itself from negative incidents such as a September 2007 shooting in Nisoor Square in Baghdad, Iraq that killed at least a dozen civilians. The company says its latest name change is meant to reflect a new focus. Blackwater / Xe spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, "We've taken the company to a place where it is no longer accurately described as Blackwater." Its subsidiaries also have new names: Blackwater Airships is now Guardian Flight Systems, Blackwater Target Systems is GSD Manufacturing, and Blackwater Lodge and Training Center is the U.S. Training Center. "
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POPSTime to get real The Right wing has always hated ACORN. Partially that's because the organization has been effective - especially when it comes to its battles for better housing and its campaigns to empower the poor the way we should do it in a democracy - registering people to vote. The Right wing hates it when poor people vote. Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/time-to-get-real-about-th_b_292923.html
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POPSSkewed Priorities Raise Their Ugly Heads. Blackwater/Xe is one of the dirtiest companies around. They murder, lie, steal and cheat. They have defrauded U.S. taxpayers of MILLIONS of dollars and have refused to be accountable, not only for the money but also for well documented murder and rape among other crimes. And we just let it ride and keep on paying them more. Meanwhile, li'l ole Acorn hires a couple of idiots who appear to hand out questionable advice to a couple of ringers, and man, are we all over it! Instantaneous cut-off of funding and front page rants and raves. In the immortal words of Yakov Smirnoff, "What a country"!
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POPSInter-Risk Company, US-Contracted Security Firm, Raided By Pakistani Police The U.S. says there is no truth in the reports, but they have resonated with the many Pakistanis familiar with allegations that Blackwater employees were involved in unprovoked killings of Iraqi civilians. Police official Rana Akram said that two Inter-Risk employees were arrested and being questioned. He said authorities were also seeking the company's owner, a retired Pakistani army captain. Reporters were shown the weapons – 61 assault rifles and nine pistols – that were seized by dozens of police from the sites in pre-dawn raids in the capital, Islamabad.
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POPSProposed Power Corridor Raises Eminent Domain Concerns in Six States
In addition to concerns expressed by farmers, local businesses relying on eco-tourism are opposed to the lines, which they fear would permanently blight places of significance like Harriet Tubman's birthplace and the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. Landowners, environmentalists and businesses that oppose the power line are urging representatives to consider alternatives, such as wind power or burying the lines. If the project is rejected at the State level, PHI could invoke federal eminent domain powers, under the Energy Policy Act of 2005: In the event that the Mid-Atlantic Power Pathway is not approved by the Maryland Public Service Commission, PHI would be able use the power of eminent domain under Federal authority. Section 1221 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides authority for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to review and override state siting decisions as well as other federal and state laws and policy and . . . .
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POPSShoddy/Profiteering - Former Bush Cronies Cash In Shoddy was a term that entered the language to describe uniforms sold to Union troops during the civil war. The uniforms literally disolved when they got wet. Profiteering is a better understood term that came out of the same era. Now it is part of the revolving door syndrome in Washington DC. Retire or resign from your politically appointed job or high military post and go to work for a government contractor to be sure you get contracts for work you may or may not do or do well but get because of old "relationships" Stinks doesn't it - no matter what party does it. It has been reason so many companies now have offices and divisions near Washington. Make me mad as hell.
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POPSWhite House Denies Claim That Panetta Threatened to Quit But a White House spokesman told the Web site that claims Panetta threatened to leave are "inaccurate." A CIA spokesman also said Panetta does not have plans to quit. The reports of friction between the agency and the White House come as the Department of Justice is set to release a report on alleged prisoner abuse. Panetta wrote a memo to staff Monday lamenting the release of the report and saying it's his job to defend all those in the CIA who followed the interrogation guidance they were given.
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POPSWho Is In Charge of War Profiteering and CIA? Has President Obama outsourced the use of Predator drones to Dick Cheney as a private contractor? He may as well have if this story turns out to be true? The head of the company belongs in jail, not getting fat off of US contracts to create new enemies of the US.
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POPSMercury Contamination Growing The EPA said this year that it intends to issue new rules under the Clean Air Act to control air emissions of mercury from coal-fired power plants. The 2nd paragraph that I clipped from the article really turned on a light for me as we (humans) are not the only ones that eat fish. Bears eat fish too. :(
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POPSPASS ID Act "is REAL ID 2.0"--Same Federalized Drivers License/National ID Scheme This is like Blackwater changing its name to Xe. No real change, just a new "makeover" to sell it. This tramples the 10th amendment right of the states by pretending that the new federal Dept. of Homeland Tyranny has a right to dictate standards for drivers licenses to the States. It also attacks your 4th amendment privacy, by setting up the same desired data-mining capabilities to watch every 'free American" on demand. RFID included. Tell your Congressmen "no".
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