Category: Government

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Reference: Federal Contractor Misconduct Database

Commerce, Corruption, Government, Military

Federal Contractor Misconduct Database

About POGO's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD)The government awards contracts to companies with histories of misconduct such as contract fraud and environmental, ethics, and labor violations.  In the absence of a centralized federal database listing instances of misconduct, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is providing such data.  We believe that it will lead to improved contracting decisions and public access to information about how the government spends hundreds of billions of taxpayer money each year on goods and services. Report an instance of misconduct »

Top 10:  Lockheed, Boeing, Northrup Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, L-3, United Technologies, Oshkosh Truck, SAIC, BAE

See Top 100 with instances and amounts.

Phi Beta Iota:  The database is severely deficient in that fraud, waste, and abuse are generally recognized as applying to 50% of every dollar spent.  Until “audit” includes “root” questions such as “should we be doing this at all? the “system” will continue to be outrageously corrupt and dysfunctional.

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Chuck Spinney: Mike Lofgren and Bill Moyers on US Political Dysfunctionality

Corruption, Government, Politics
Chuck Spinney

Mike Lofgren on Dysfunction in Our Political Parties

August 31, 2012

Bill talks with Mike Lofgren, a long-time Republican who describes the modern dysfunction of both the Republican and Democratic parties. In Lofgren’s view, Republicans have become overly obsessed with obstructing President Obama, and the Democrats suffer from political complacency. Lofgren’s new book is The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted.

Video with Full Transcript Also Provided

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Paul Craig Roberts: The Real Unemployment Rate(s) — and Tips on Getting Past USAJobs Guilloutine

Corruption, Economics/True Cost, Government, Military
Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts: The real unemployment rates – a study in information credibility

Official Unemployment: U.3  8.1%

Mid-Term Real Unemployment:  U-6 14.7%

Actual Unemployment (All):  22.4% and rising

Includes analysis of the new jobs (not enough to provide for those new to the employment market such as immigrants and graduates).  Bottom line: bar tenders and home health service–the bottom of the barrel.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  For those of you applying for government jobs, be warned.  Apart from needing an active TS/SCI to be considered (but it helps to have an OPM SSBI completed in past six months), you have to get through what is now an out of control automated system that dumps you if you do not have enough keywords.  Beyond that you have a line of low-level clerks without a clue about substance [in fairness to USAJobs, the problems appear to be at the receiving agency level, not with USAJobs).  So here are two guidlines:

1.  Read the position description carefully, and tailor your USAJobs resuem for that specific job.  You are dealing with a really really stupid system.

2.  If you have the connections, or care to send in a copy directly to the hiring official as an alert, do so.  Our contacts are telling us that they are getting crummy selections from the system, and when they go back and ask to see ALL applications, they get another 15-20 among whom are 5 world-class stars the system was too stupid to recognize.  This is particularly true of DIA.  Our advice to hiring managers:  insist on ALL applications without exception being delivered to you.

Good luck.

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NIGHTWATCH: Syria-Iraq-Iran

Government, IO Impotency, Military

Syria-Iraq-Iran: Several news outlets reported information from US sources that US Intelligence has confirmed that Iran is airlifting supplies across Iraq to Syria with the permission of the al Maliki government. Vice President Biden supposedly talked by telephone with al Maliki about this issue.

Comment: So… at the time the US is preparing to send F-16 fighters to Iraq as a pledge of the strategic alliance, Iraq's government is allowing Iranian transport aircraft to fly critical supplies to the Syrian regime which the US opposes. Official, direct protests by the US Vice President have been rejected.

There are two implications. The Iranian airlift is the lifeline the Syrian government needs to defeat the opposition. Secondly, based on experiences in Pakistan, any modern US weapons technology transferred to Iraq will end up as a technology transfer to Iran and then China.

Iraq is not a US ally. Al Maliki is a satrap of Iran, more than a friend of the US when it really counts. That is not a positive return on investment.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: Syria-Iraq-Iran”

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Mini-Me: Desmond Tutu – George W. Bush and Tony Blair Should Face Prosecution for Iraq War

Corruption, Government
Who? Mini-Me?

Huh?

Desmond Tutu: George W. Bush and Tony Blair Should Face Prosecution for Iraq War

Louis Peitzman

Gawker.com, 2 Sep 2012

In an op-edpublished today, Archbishop and Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu does not mince words in his condemnation of the Iraq War:

The immorality of the United States and Great Britain's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, premised on the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, has destabilised and polarised the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history.

Desmond Tutu

But the crux of Tutu's argument is this — why aren't George W. Bush and Tony Blair accountable for their crimes?

Tutu points out the different standards when it comes to dealing with people like Robert Mugabe and Osama bin Laden. He argues that Bush and Blair “stoop[ed] to [Saddam Hussein's] immoral level,” leading to the deaths of 110,000 Iraqis and 4,500 American soldiers. Not to mention the 32,000 soldiers wounded in battle.

On the basis of these figures, Tutu argues that Bush and Blair should be tried by the International Criminal Court.

Read rest of commentary.

Read original OpEd by Archbishop Tutu

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Desmond Tutu – George W. Bush and Tony Blair Should Face Prosecution for Iraq War”

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Gordon Duff: Mind Control, Lef-Right Myth, Re-Connecting to Reality + Meta-RECAP

Corruption, Government, Politics
Gordon Duff

Mind Control and the “Left – Right” Paradigm

Veterans Today, 4 Sep 2012

EXTRACT:

Anyone with a realistic view would, as I have suggested before, vote in a powerful and charismatic leader, have the Supreme Court disbanded, disband congress, have a realistic constitution written, disband the Federal Reserve, fire 85% of our senior military, 50% of our Officer and NCO corps and reduce military spending by 80% immediately.

We would withdraw from the UN, from NATO, close bases overseas, stop all foreign aid, end all imports from slave labor nations and tax the living hell out of anything brought into the US.

All money that couldn’t be proven to have been made legally, industries that do not create jobs, actual work, would be declared “null and void.”

Most in prison would be released, some treated, sex criminals isolated, others given jobs and educations and forced to live like the rest of us, paying taxes and utility bills.

All public utilities would be seized and turned over to the government, oil companies nationalized, all defense industries nationalized, all drug industries put under continual supervision and forced to spend all profits on government bonds.

Continue reading “Gordon Duff: Mind Control, Lef-Right Myth, Re-Connecting to Reality + Meta-RECAP”

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