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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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POPSLawmakers seek ban on laptops in airliner cockpits This is the mentality of legislators. They approach this isolated situation as if it were a quickly escalating ‘problem’ that must be addressed immediately instead of leaving it to the airline to tighten their own rules of conduct for pilots. Legislators love to jump on stuff like this because it has the appearance, to us lowly tax payers, that they are coming to our rescue to protet us from the evil use of laptops in cockpits. And it makes them feel good about themselves that they are doing something useful. More legislation! More rules! More laws! More oversight! Yeah, that will make us all be more responsible.
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POPSExcuses wearing thin for Obama, media pals He lost me completely when his Administration declared we were in an economic crisis then he & the Congress proceeded to sink us even deeper with irresponsible spending. The spending is in such huge amounts that there is no accountability or oversight. It's going down a black hole and our Country is going with it.
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POPSBaucus Healthcare Bill True Cost: $2 Trillion
None was provided to them to make these estimates, so we still don't even know what's really in the bill! There are a host of other frauds being perpetrated on us right now by our government regarding health care. So let's get something straight about the high percentage of GDP (16-17 percent) devoted to healthcare in this country, because it is widely misunderstood. First, most of the excessive costs of American medical care are the result of government intervention. In fact proponents of socialized medicine anticipated that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid would create a crisis in health care, generating calls for reform. Their ready answer was just more of the same. We would all like to see costs of medical care come down. This country should move to reduce costs by removing the causes: excessive government intervention that distorts the market. The many ways government intervenes and the many solutions are beyond the scope of this essay, but that is the answer.
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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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POPSShould We Audit The Federal Reserve? I certainly think so. I mean, why not? We get audited all the time. Why not do the turn about thing, and make them accountable for their issues? http://www.campaignforliberty.com/ Please go to this site as well for a deeper insigh into Ron Paul's agenda.
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POPSSenate panel rejects health 'public option' Thank goodness. More work needs to be done to see that private insurance companies meet the needs of their policy holders while still being able to have the money to PAY for the costs. In my opinion, the answer lies in tort reform, independent oversight, freedom to choose, and no federal interference in how my doctor & I negotiate my healthcare.
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POPSBreaking: Treasury I-G Agrees to Probe ACORN those dollars were misused in anyway." "I am heartened by the agreement of the Treasury Department's Inspector General to examine the troubling financial questions that have been raised about ACORN," said Senator Collins. "This is the first step in the right direction toward much-needed transparency. As I've noted before, at a time when so many American families are facing difficult economic situations, it is completely unacceptable that even one penny of taxpayer money be misused. We must bring all agencies and groups that use taxpayer funds into the spotlight of accountability." Last week, Senator Collins and Rep. Issa made a formal joint request that seven Offices of Inspectors General, including Treasury, probe the activities of ACORN, a community advocacy organization. By Matthew Vadum
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POPSTop 100 Thieves of our tax and private dollars
Good source to find out who really are the biggest thieves from us/US. No ACORNs here, just mighty Oaks: Selling nuclear technology to Libya a few years back - Halliburton pled guilty to additional criminal charges and accepted “a criminal penalty of $1,200,000 for three violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in connection with the export of the pulse neutron generators to Libya.” A Denver federal court ordered Boeing and Dow Chemical Company to pay 12,000 homeowners $926 million for contaminating their property with radioactive waste from the Department of Energy’s Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation ordered Humana Insurance Co. to pay a $500,000 fine to resolve complaints that Humana enrolled Illinois citizens into more expensive and/or duplicative health plans. GlaxoSmithKline agreed to pay approximately $3.4 billion to settle charges by the IRS that the company under-reporte
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POPSACORN Comes Under Closer Scrutiny In New York or loan counseling services. That may be where you would hope the money goes, but they don't specifically set out how monies should be spent when dividing up member items in the state budget. The New York Times finally ran one of its reporters out to discuss the developing situation with ACORN, but he focuses on the partisanship of those pushing the videos and avoids serious scrutiny of the discussion of illegal activities on the videos. The fact is that ACORN hires people with a certain moral and ethical flexibility that allows them to slip right into these kinds of conversations with the greatest of ease. They had no problem discussing how to avoid legal entanglements for running child prostitution rings, brothels, and other illegal activities out of properties purchased with ACORN's assistance. What that suggests is that ACORN training is far from okay. It suggests a serious breakdown of procedures, and a failure of oversight. It also suggests that the organization . . .
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POPSCongress Are You Listening? Stop Giving ACORN Our Money! of all accusations with facts backing up the statements. From the opening summary: “Since 1994, more than $53 million in federal funds have been pumped into ACORN, and under the Obama administration, ACORN stands to receive a whopping $8.5 billion in available stimulus funds. Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use taxpayer and tax-exempt dollars for partisan political purposes, and to distract investigators. Structurally, ACORN is a chess game in which senior management is shielded from accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for every bad act.” This is not the first time ACORN has been investigated. The Consumers Rights League, a non-partisan organization, did an extensive in-depth investigation into ACORN Housing and their mortgage practices in 2008 which they . . .
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POPSThe Census Bureau breaks up with Acorn House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Darrell Issa (R-CA) today applauded U.S. Census Bureau Director Robert Groves’ decision to terminate its partnership with ACORN in conducting the 2010 Census: “ACORN had no business working on the Census. ACORN’s partisan election efforts and its involvement in criminal conduct rightly disqualified it from working on the non-partisan mission of the Census to accurately and honestly count the U.S. population,” said Rep. Issa. “Had ACORN been allowed to submit fraudulent information to the Census, it could have changed the boundaries of Congressional districts and altered Federal funding decisions to states and local communities. I applaud Census Bureau Director Robert Groves for making this independent decision following mounting evidence of wrongdoing by ACORN.”
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POPSTea Party Bus Sponsor's Negligence Killed 23 Seniors In Fire, Blames Federal Government. Global Limo's owner Jim Maples even listed Global Charters as his employer when he gave $5000 to the RNC in 2004. *BusBank CEO Bill Maulsby blamed insufficient federal oversight, "We're not safety experts," he said. "We clearly need to depend on the federal government." In November 2006, a federal court convicted Maples and sentenced him to five years' probation for failure to maintain his buses. Investigators found 168 violations in Maples' four-bus fleet. The following month, US Fed News reported that BusBank had been awarded a Homeland Security contract worth up to $55 million. In June, BusBank and Global Limo settled out of court for a total of $11 million, a pittance when split between the families of the 23 victims and the patients who survived the crash. BusBank's legal troubles are far from over. According to one report, more lawsuits are getting underway this month.
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POPSUS 'Unlikely' to Recoup Auto Outlay, Panel Finds What a hoot! As if we did not know. Billions of dollars gone down the drain. Why would not letting the the markets do their thing have been a better option? Is the answer that *more* people would have been out of work? It really appears that all that money did nothing.
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POPSRep. Issa Just Threw a T*rd in Pelosi's Punch Bowl HR 3438 IH HR 3438 IH 111th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 3438 To amend title 5, United States Code, to establish a national health program administered by the Office of Personnel Management to offer Federal employee health benefits plans to individuals who are not Federal employees, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES July 31, 2009 Mr. ISSA introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and in addition to the Committee on Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-3438
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POPSTerrorists Get Appeals, Obamacare Patients Don’t ~ by Andrew McCarthy To deprive these litigants of basic legal rights, we were told, was to run roughshod over constitutional checks and balances. Without federal district judges overseeing the commander-in-chief’s conduct of war, George W. Bush would have an intolerable “blank check.” The people trying to kill us would be lost in a “legal black hole,” an unconscionable violation of the rule of law. Perusing the Democrats’ proposal to usurp the health-care industry, one-sixth of what used to be known as the private sector, that history rushes back to mind. Pardon me if I can’t help thinking: This sure looks an awful lot like a legal black hole. #adOne might have thought we’d run out of blank checks for Barack Obama by now. But if “our values” really include judicial oversight, then Obamacare doesn’t have much to do with our values. And this time, the people being stripped of their basic legal rights are not America-hating terrorists.
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POPSCash for Clunkers Gee, the government is doing such a wonderful job with the cash for clunkers program, maybe we should give them a chance at handling the health care industry. The people in the federal government are failures.
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POPSHired Killers Investigated From the get go I was against a huge, Praetorian Guard operating without oversight in the war of choice known as Iraq. It seems that the underlying nature of this band of mercenaries is now being exposed to the light of day.
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POPSBlackwater Founder Implicated in Murder I hope they nail this M*****f**ker... Briefed on the substance of these allegations by The Nation, Congressman Dennis Kucinich replied, "If these allegations are true, Blackwater has been a criminal enterprise defrauding taxpayers and murdering innocent civilians." Kucinich is on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and has been investigating Prince and Blackwater since 2004. "Blackwater is a law unto itself, both internationally and domestically. The question is why they operated with impunity. In addition to Blackwater, we should be questioning their patrons in the previous administration who funded and employed this organization. Blackwater wouldn't exist without federal patronage; these allegations should be thoroughly investigated," Kucinich said.
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POPSLifting the Lid on America's Biowarfare Research Reporting guidelines are so lax that dangerous pathogens such as hantavirus, SARS and dengue fever "are not on the select agent list" nor are there requirements "that the theft, loss or release of these agents ... be reported to Federal officials." More recently, Global Security Newswire reported in June that an inventory at USAMRIID at Fort Detrick, Md., "found nearly 10,000 more vials of potentially lethal pathogens than were known to be stored at the site." The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine was so-alarmed by the prospect that in 2003 they commented, "the possibility for genetic engineering and aerosol transmission suggests an enormous potential for bioterrorism." Unsaid, of course, was the gravest threat posed by such dark research may be state terrorism. Any one of these pathogens should they escape or made to "disappear," could be transformed into a doomsday weapon.
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POPSTime for Congress to Start Issuing Subpoenas Pulling the TARP over taxpayers' eyes By: Michael Barone Last fall, former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson told shocked Americans that the $700 billion TARP had to be passed immediately but not to worry because taxpayers would eventually make money on the investments as banks and other institutions getting bailout money paid it back. To the contrary, Barofsky said, not only are banks hoarding TARP funds, it is "very unlikely" that most of the TARP money will ever be repaid, let alone turn a profit. The hastily passed bill included minimal reporting requirements, so a third of all TARP recipients admit they used the money to repay loans, merge with other banks, and even purchase more mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - the two institutions at the heart of the housing market collapse. Some companies are even using TARP to pay off other government loans in what auditors call "bailout arbitrage." And it's all perfectly legal.
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POPSCongressman Kucinich Asks ‘Is the Fed Paying Banks NOT to Loan Money?’ Domestic Policy Subcommittee Chair Announces New Probe of TARP If these reports are true, this raises significant questions about who the Fed is working for. There is record unemployment and businesses and consumers across American are starved for capital, if the Fed is paying higher interest rates on term deposits in order to induce banks to keep money at the Fed rather than lend, it would be an outrage,” Kucinich said. Kucinich recounted for Barofsky the policy path which TARP followed when it was first presented to Congress: “First Congress was told that TARP was for the purchase of toxic assets, to help keep people in their homes. Then the Bush Administration switched the program. “Next Congress was told that the TARP funds were instead needed to bail out the banks, in the form of a direct capital infusion, to keep credit markets alive. “If TARP isn’t about keeping people in their homes or providing credit to businesses, what is it for?
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POPSThe criminal case against ACORN The report expresses concern that ACORN would channel $8.5 billion in economic stimulus funds through a criminal corporate structure designed to mask the distribution of public money to partisan activities, including voter fraud to advance the campaigns of radical Democratic politicians.
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POPSHighly unusual meeting between CBO & President At best, this looks like a move made out of ignorance of the constitutional checks and balances of the federal government. It appears more like an attempt to browbeat the CBO into more sympathetic scoring of presidential initiatives. Congress should act quickly and forcefully to remind Obama about the boundaries of his executive power. This feels like an attempt to either intimidate or co-opt the CBO, neither of which would be a good thing. The entire meeting seems highly inappropriate. Update II: This seems mighty familiar to Brian Faughnan, who recalls Senator Max Baucus demanding that the CBO stop playing independent arbiter and start throwing the numbers to support a government takeover of the health-care industry.
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POPSRESCUE GATE: A TWENTY-FOUR TRILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT
What is the Treasury Department hiding? The government’s top watchdog over the $700 billion “rescue package” says that the Treasury Department refuses to let the taxpayers know how that money has been spent. Why? Neil Barofsky is the special inspector general over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). According to The Hill, “Barofsky said that while the TARP program that Congress passed amounts to $700 billion, the total federal government support since 2007 for the economy and the financial sector could reach a far higher figure of $23.7 trillion. The government has committed significantly more money through a variety of other federal agencies and programs.” Don’t let that quote go over your heads folks. He said the bailout “could reach a far higher figure of $23.7 trillion.” What!!!!!!!!!!!! Who authorized this? The taxpayers didn’t. Congress didn’t. Who then? $23.7 trillion is twice America’s total gross domestic product and way above the $700 billion authorized.
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POPSBillions in aid go to... mostly the same places as usual
No evidence that it's being steered to Obama-voting areas. More: About a third of the $17 billion, or $5.5 billion, in contracts that the federal government has signed for projects ranging from repaving runways to cleaning up nuclear waste has gone overwhelmingly to counties that supported McCain. Jake Wiens, an investigator with the non-profit Project on Government Oversight, says it's too soon to draw meaningful conclusions about whether the type of aid in the stimulus favors Obama's constituents. But, he says, "it will be important to pay close attention as the data come in to ensure that political favoritism plays no role." The imbalance didn't start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, the counties that later voted for Obama collected about 50% more government aid than those that supported McCain, according to spending reports from the U.S. Census Bureau. USA TODAY's review did not include Alaska, which does not report its election results by county.[/quote
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POPS60,000 inmates abused every year, study says This should come as no surprise to anyone. However, the number is freaky crazy, and I’ll bet that not all cases are reported. What I find interesting is that more prisoners claimed abuse by staff than by other inmates. I guess it’s the whole power dynamic that some people just can’t resist taking advantage of. Unfortunately, most of this type of person ends up being cops.
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