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POPSWhy are Healthcare and Military Costs So High? Theft! The word "shoddy" comes from a descriptin for civil war uniforms made from scrape wool that would fall apart in the rain. Shoddy, is an apt description for the ethics of the companies listed below, which even after paying huge fsetlements for false claims are still getting government contracts. We have met the enemy - and he is us because we continue to vote for those who will not manage and do their job.
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POPSTheists to the Resue (Cont.) Ah, I see. I had no idea how different the government of the UK was from the government of the US. Here, honesty and generosity aren't exactly common currency in government, or at least are in conflict. I suppose one could argue that Washington has been very generous to defense contractors, but they aren't very forthright about it. I suppose there are principles of solidarity at work, with our most religious party, the Republicans, being monolithic in their opposition to equality, social support, and science, and Democrats straining to achieve some kind of unity — maybe they'd benefit from religious rigidity, too. I suppose if the UK government did model their political system after the Muslims and Christians, they could end up with a nice, pretty political system like ours, with Republicans and Democrats.
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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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POPS Economic Stimulation I’m a little late to today’s economic-stimulus exasperation party. Sorry. I was busy working at my unstimulated private-sector job, which uses pulp, ink, trucks, pens, notebooks and a lot of eletronics plus electricity and employs hundreds of taxpayers directly and indirectly to tell people how the hacks are trying to shaft them in Boston. It was great. I enjoyed it. Even though, far from looking for or getting any support, we’ve had to fight the government over simple things like the freedom to enter business relationships with other news organizations that might have made us more financially viable. Thank you, Ted Kennedy, liberal lion.
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POPSInvested In War n 2004, the first full year after the current Iraq war began, Republican and Democratic lawmakers-both hawks and doves invested between $74.9 million and 161.3 million in companies under contract with the DoD. No wonder the Democratic congress kept approving the enormous spending bills on the war, since a significant portion of it happens to end up in their deep pockets. Interestingly, the report also mentioned that members of the senate foreign relations and armed services committees which oversee the Iraq war had between $32 million and $44 million invested in companies with DoD contracts. The burning questions for many people are the following: Are there any ethics left in politics? Could the universe ever exist without wars? The answer is no, because wars have been a major part of our social make up, in addition they force geostrategic changes, make profits for the elite, and reduce population.
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POPSLooking for a middle class
A sad depiction of how our middle class has been steadily losing ground to corporate dominance. This new economy is strangling the very people responsible for the success of many businesses who, along with government’s help, are creating this new economy. The days of job security are over. Beginning when companies began turning their ‘full-benefit’ employees into contractors to save the expense of providing those benefits. The middle class is about to be beat down even further when the drive to reduce the deficit and debt takes center stage. Reduction of Social Security, Medicare and other entitlements will be seen as the answer to rising costs and the middle class will be the biggest losers, again. Ms Cocco advises us to “Fight the myths. Break the back of the corrupt campaign finance and lobbying systems. These are hard political tasks. But being pushed further down is harder, still. Because no one knows where the new bottom lies.” Advice we would all do well to heed.
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POPSRape case to force US defence firms into the open Halliburton/KBR used a clause in her contract requiring disputes to be settled by arbitration to block legal action – a policy which, her lawyer says, has encouraged assaults by creating a climate of impunity. Franken described it as a denial of justice. "Contractors are using fine print to deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court," he said in a Senate debate. In legal papers Jones, who was 20 at the time, says she was fed a knockout drug while drinking with KBR firefighters. "When she awoke the next morning still affected by the drug, she found her body naked and severely bruised, with lacerations to her vagina and anus, blood running down her leg, her breast implants ruptured and her pectoral muscles torn‚ which would later require reconstructive surgery. Upon walking to the rest room, she passed out again," the papers say.
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POPSBuild a Fence, Look Good, Oops! Good thing no one suggested that we build a fence to keep Osama bin Ladin on one place so we could find him. The Australians built 3 fences to keep rabbits out of Western Australia. It took 6 years to build and was a bit over 2,000 in length. In 7 years, we have not been able to build 27 miles of fence using private contractors. Grin - maybe Congress should have gone for the Public Option, copied the CCC of the Depression Years, and hired a bunch of out of work construction workers put them under the supervision of US Forestry trail builders and just do it!
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POPSFederal Web sites knocked out by cyber attack The feds need to admit that this is a devastating problem for them and they do not have the internal skills, nor do the beltway bandits and most other contractors. They need to go out and get the true professional white hats and solid cyber security firms to help deal with this head-on. To compete with the people who have these skills the US Government needs to hire the best of the best (much like they have top gun schools). We have lots of military hardware and military might, but we severly lack the skills the enemy of the future - that of the cyber realm.
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POPSLawsuit now accuses Xe contractors of murder, kidnapping I'm using Amplify.com now, so these clips get fired over here from there. This means my tag system is now different. The old tags are now my categories on Amplify. http://nuttyriv3r.amplify.com if you want to check it out. I'm impressed so far...I like the Wordpress interface to begin with.
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POPSContractors kill Iraqi Dogs Soldiers confirmed that the U.S. government had hired contractors to kill dogs found on American bases in Iraq. Some military units were also ordered to shoot animals on sight. Napoleon, saved by a Newfoundland dog after falling overboard during an attempt to escape exile on the island of Elba. “Here, gentlemen,” the ex-Emperor observed, “a dog teaches us a lesson in humanity.”
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POPSIntroducing ChangeTracker: Tracking Change in Washington
About Us ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them. Investigative journalism is at risk. Many news organizations have increasingly come to see it as a luxury. Today’s investigative reporters lack resources: Time and budget constraints are curbing the ability of journalists not specifically designated “investigative” to do this kind of reporting in addition to their regular beats. This is therefore a moment when new models are necessary to carry forward some of the great work of journalism in the public interest that is such an integral part of self-government, and thus an important bulwark of our democracy. http://www.propublica.org/about/
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POPSAmerica’s hidden unemployment crisis Since these numbers are not taken into account when unemployment is counted, it would mean that there is a much larger unemployment rate. If one also considers those who have only found part-time work into the equation we could be really at like 20% unemployment rate and not the 10% or whatever it is that government is telling us.
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POPSReport Finds Major U.S. Companies Have Offshore Tax Havens 
Hmmm I'd say something is WRONG here.. our so called hired/elected officials get away with all sorts of crimes up to and including either not having to pay certain taxes (ie.. social security) or somehow forget to pay taxes AT ALL and get away with it.. Maidoff rips all sorts of folks off of BILLIONS of dollars and ignores a ruling and still sends out even more millions in so called gifts and gets a stay out of jail card while living it up in a multi million $ penthouse.. Companies aren't paying taxes or shelter it some sort of way.. Meanwhile we work our azzes off don't get away with owing $2.50 on something without getting a warning that ' our legal dept. will be contacting you ASSHOLE' in the mail or harassing phone calls all day long.. WTF.. We are such suckers our county has been stolen they've managed to take all of our money away and give us CRAP.. and we run around like lil F'g trained monkeys.. Whats going on here!! !!!! They even spend our cash anyway they deem fit!!!
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POPSBlackwater Victims and Americans Need Justice I sincerely hope that the families of these innocent people, gunned down by an arrogant Blackwater private security force, will get justice. The American people need to know that our military will not condone the actions of a few ‘hired guns’. Actions by this administration have severely damaged the hard fought-for respect that our fathers and brothers in the military died to earn. This nation cannot be associated with ‘soldiers of fortune’ if we are to retain that respect. The hiring of private security forces is a step towards fascism and in this case was put in place for the financial benefit of current and ex-government and military officials. Bush, Cheney and all Department of Defense officials should be held accountable for the atmosphere created by this misguided and irresponsible decision. Allowing these individuals to go unpunished will be a major blow against U.S. foreign relations and the American people for years to come.
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POPSSix Blackwater Guards 'May' Be Charged in Iraq Massacre Immunity and impunity have gone hand in hand. Representative Jim McDermott. "The private contracting thing is the most erosive thing that this administration has done. You look at all the things that are being run by private contractors, you simply cannot be handing money to a private contractor who is not under the law of that country or the law of this country and can do anything they want. They're really -- they're rogue outfits." Blackwater and at least 300 other companies have been hired by the US government for privatized armed services in Iraq to the tune of about $6 billion in taxpayer money..
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POPSPact May Open US Troops to Iraqi Prosecution Bush administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the evolving diplomacy on the so-called Status of Forces Agreement, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top Bush aides will soon to begin briefing key members of Congress on the draft. In case American troops are arrested for such offenses, they would be transferred to U.S. custody but made available to Iraqi authorities for questioning and trial, the officials said. The negotiating teams have decided they cannot improve on the proposal and have sent it to higher-ups for a political decision as time runs out on both the Bush administration and the U.N. mandate. (T)he State Department confirmed that a draft agreement had been finalized but refused to discuss any details...
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POPSRonald Reagan Returns in Form of Joe the Plumber European Model The implication is that the U.S. now should follow the European model -- a bigger, more stable state. In the Euro plan, government doesn't have to come out and extend deposit insurance. That's because everyone assumes the government is already guaranteeing everything anyhow. But Republicans don't listen to non-Republican pundits very often. They listen to their own. So Reagan's true coroners are the Republican or Republican-friendly experts who have dismissed him as ``yesterday.'' For years now, long before the recent market debacle, party advisers have been talking about building up Theodore Roosevelt as a Reagan substitute. TR's muscular diplomacy could be cast as a precedent for the Iraq action. TR's emphasis on reform also seemed modern. Taxes and Faxes What Joe the Plumber reminds us is what Republicans used to know -- that the only path to true recovery for the U.S., even now, is growth. U.S. isn't a petro-economy. It's an incentive economy.
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POPSDepartment of Defense Usurps Department of State Power! I am not saying that that having the Department of State or Department of Defense "paying" a contractor to write and print good news about USA for Iraqi's is a good thing or a bad thing just that WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO FREEDOM OF THE PRESS?! Isn't this the job of the free press of the world? I guess Haliburton must have a marketing department that has figured out a new way to make money off of this Bush League War
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POPSArms Trade Flows Freely According to US state department figures this week, Iraq has signed more than $3bn worth of arms deals in the past two years. Amnesty estimates that more than 1m small arms have been sold to Iraq since the 2003 invasion and the Iraqi government plans to procure more than 250,000 from the US and China. And the irresponsible war profiteering continues. Russia has agreed to supply 27 helicopters to Sudan, says Amnesty. Last year, Sudan listed its main arms suppliers as China, Russia, North Korea, Belarus, Indonesia, Iran and Malaysia. Some of these weapons are being used by Al Qaeda against U.S. troops. Is there no better reason to halt this illegal/immoral war?
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POPSBlackwater Is Here to Stay
Anyone who thinks Blackwater is in serious trouble is dead wrong. Even if - and this is a big if - the company pulled out of Iraq tomorrow, here is the cold, hard fact: business has never been better for Blackwater, and its future looks bright. More on this in a moment. Back to the matter at hand. Complaining that negative media attention and congressional and criminal investigations are hurting business and that the Blackwater name had become a catch-all target for anti-war protesters, the company’s brass told the AP that Blackwater was shifting its focus to its other areas of government contracting, like law enforcement and military training, as well as logistics. ”The experience we’ve had would certainly be a disincentive to any other companies that want to step in and put their entire business at risk,” said Erik Prince, Blackwater’s reclusive, 39 year-old founder and owner. Company president Gary Jackson said Blackwater has become like the “Coca-Cola” of war contractors, a b
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POPSBush Wants Bin Laden "Dead or Alive"--Again! Right! Too bad he already died in Dec. 2001, which is why Bush suddenly lost interest ("I'm really not that concerned about one man"), and the CIA closed down its Bin Laden unit. Scenario: use UK Special Ops and UAV drones and fire a missile at a "safe house" near the Paki border, then claim to have killed Bin Laden--great propaganda! Especially if done before Sept. 11, 2008. It's all a lie, and Bush knows it, which is why he has been caught contradicting himself many times. Or, just ask the neocon contractors like SITE, let them track the websites of the "bin Laden videos" that keeping popping up before elections! Surely they could find the source of those videos, if they wanted. The FBI does not list 9/11 on Bin Laden's wanted poster, and they say "there is no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11".
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