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The Daily Muck
One million dollars. That’s how much it cost the Defense Department to ship two 19-cent washers after a South Carolina small supplies shipping company exploited an automated shipping system designed to quickly get supplies to American troops. Charlene Corley, the owner of C&D Distributors LLC, pleaded guilty yesterday to wire fraud and money laundering when she and her late sister Darlene Wooten overcharged the government by over $20 million through a loophole in the automated system. (AP)
Someone doesn't want the government to continue its raids against immigrants: the Census Bureau. The agency is trying to prepare for the 2010 population count, and it worries that the raids will erode what remains of the trust between immigrants and the federal government. (Associated Press)
First there were student loans scandals. Now investigators are looking into study abroad programs. The New York attorney general is looking into allegations that study abroad programs have been unfairly influencing universities to adopt their programs by giving cash incentives and perks to administrators. (NY Times)
Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL) is looking for help with his legal defense fund. Unfortunately, one of the first contributors is Tyng-Lin Yang, a federal contractor whose close relationship with Feeney got both men in trouble when Feeney was a state representative. (Orlando Sentinel)
Let's face it: it's tough to be in the State Department. The agency is trying to modernize its embassies to keep up with the War on Terror, but a limited budget and cookie-cutter-style modernization reforms (like installing the same air conditioning system for embassies in Africa as those in Europe) means that these foreign branches are suffering. Embassies have had air conditioning problems, electrical fires and understaffed construction crews. And then there's the Baghdad embassy... (Washington Post)
"The dissolution of a once proud House Republican leadership team is near complete." Thus begins the Washington Post's recap of the latest announced retirements from GOP Congressional leaders. (Washington Post)
It's called public relations. Computers at the FBI and the CIA have been busy editing Wikipedia entries on controversial topics like the Iraq War and Guantanamo Bay, a possible violation of the site's neutrality guidelines. (Reuters)
Hospital operator HCA Inc. founded by former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and his brother has settled to pay $20 million to shareholders who claim the company misrepresented the company’s growth in 2005. (AP)
The federal government has agreed to settle with a couple that wore anti-Bush t-shirts to the Texas state capitol while Bush was making a speech there. (Associated Press)





Quelle surprise! Guess who's complaining about the embassies? It's the Bush Ambassador appointees!
Italy? Appointee Robert Spagoli.
Belize? Appointee Robert Dieter.
And the Foreign Buildings Director? A Bush appointee.
I can only wonder how lovely it is at the FSO-staffed embassies. Are they suffering in silence?
August 17, 2007 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
From a 10/18/06 WaPo story, "Weldon's Ties to Serbian Businessman Part of Probe" by R. Jeffrey Smith and Carol D. Leonnig:
"A grand jury has been impaneled as part of the investigation, and it has obtained evidence gathered via wiretaps of Washington area cellphone numbers, the sources said."
Who was the FBI wiretapping and how did it know who to wiretap? Was Weldon and/or other members of Congress wiretapped?
The grand jury was empaneled more than a year ago and yet there have been no leaks since October. No one in the press, as far as I know, has even speculated about the Weldon investigation and his name hardly comes up
anymore even in the TPM MR.
The Philadelphia Inquirer did one story in November about Weldon and his crony, John J. Gallagher, that should have gotten more attention in the press but it didn't. It had to do with a dummy corporation set up to take advantage of a DOE program to re-train Russain nuclear weapons scientists.
I'm assuming that Weldon is still under investigation. I'm sure that if he had been cleared of any wrongdoing, we'd have heard about it by now. Weldon isn't shy.
What gives?
August 17, 2007 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
@JA:
How's the job going? The research community is suffering without you!
August 17, 2007 11:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey guys, how about a correction on the article about HCA Corporation. Bill Frist was 16 years old when his father and oldest brother founded the corporation. He has never even worked for HCA or been on the Board of Directors. Fairness requires that you correct the record. Thanks.
August 17, 2007 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fiji is building one and the military leaders who took over the country and are taking over the embassies overseas while selling off resources, except Fiji water that already stole the land, are complaining about the noise so maybe the US shouldn't put it's new embassy there, but it's really not them who have to leave - even if they go totally military intelleigence like the new Fiji embassy website, but it's okay because the British bought the mines that the Netherlands, etc., couldn't sell or didn't own, but it's really the King of England who sent Scottish terriers( I guess he missed the Phillipines and Thailand) to do the work for capitalists or is it his parents and it's all in the family like the old days?
Angencies don't exist anymore, they're the new, good NSAs(non state actors) that academia is pushing as a way of getting covert CIA funding through USAID and transferring that type of funding, not necessarily the same agencies working together, to the agencies rather than NGO NSAs, but the problem is a security issue, but that's okay because the agencies, like NSAs, will be hiring military and that's who should really deal with all these military coups in these countries, but that's not discrminating against them for funding before they get there because of USAID funding that went to the Afghanistan War(which wasn't funded by a Congressman on the intelligence committee who new the NSA NGO and bypassed the USAID appointee to pay out his dem pals) that was actually funded based on the agencies original work on areas that were not high risk; but that wouldn't be discriminating by raising the risk level because someone came from the military.
Pre 9/11 Foreign buildings rules for motorpools and other buildings protected by the DSS maybe more of the issue and the Ambassdor to Tanzania who was fired by mistake by Bush who can't recover the ambassador to promote him becuase his replacement was ordered on the basis of the former ambassador geing wrong, but he wasn't and people got Directorial waivers for continued employment beyond the laws limit which is not statutory or otherwise classified other than a waiver like the pre 9/11 waiver for foreign buildings and there wer some London gas car bombs, but that's not related to the NGO in Afghanistan, which is really an NSA; but what's really important is increasing employment beyond the legal limit, but that has failed becaue it's an agenda like not allowing other federal employees to serve in agencies based on a dislike for other federal employees which makes no sense because the federal employees can transfer to those other federal jobs and have benefits etc. The employment should be equal for all federal employees, so there should b eno limits, which is correct, but the opportunity cost based on the emplyment limit shouldn't be confused with democrats not having term limits and Republcians having term limits, based on allowing others to serve the federal government, which the dmeocrats won't allow because they believe the taxpayers should pay for their whole lives in congress while no gets a chance for 20 years or whatever, which really isn't fair, but that's not where term limits came from because you have to look at a parliamentary system and the fact that Repubicans give others opportunity while liberals just stay ther forever and waste government money and try to get more people hired by the federal government to keep themselves employeed in government; so maybe we should use appiontees with limits instead of FSOs to give others opportunities to serve, but that wouldn't be dem and all those federal obs would be losing time payed(maybe five year limit with a three year assessment) by the US government, so maybe a limit on the FSOs and the appintees with an opportunity to transfer as federal employees to other agencies and federal empoyment.
So the FBI edited the Sarah Chayes and Shays wikipedia entry on the funding and planning of the Afghanistan war, but that's okay because Plame went after the five year law, which showed us all those spies out of Harvard, but they're reall not spies, but informanats covered under the same five year law as Plame, which was how Plame got busted because she broke that rule because of what happened to Ames, not that it did because of all the Russians and spies and the removal of genetic material based on Plame breaking the rules of the five year thing, but there's Fitz and his histroy out of Chicagi os maybe when she deal twith FBI earlier that was actually the leak from Ames that Plame used, not that it was a mistake; but the research community seemes to have gone for the NSAs thing instead of like genetic things, etc, which is good except there is no real way to pay that out unless the pint would have been to poison and kill, but that would have been Plame's point, which wasthepoint and has been the piontsince the Russians started poisoning each other based on Lebanese terrorists finding excuses not to go to the US and get arrested in NJ, which they knew would happen, so it was write those off and keep on poisoning; Russian poison and Lebansese poison are alot different, but it happensatthe same time, but if you do the research, alot of poisonings are survivable unless the victim is assaulted or driving, which is usually what happens and then no one checks for basic poisoing like drugs, which the Lebanese and the Russians apparently never use, but cremating the body before the trial is probably the best way to poison and kill and get away with it, so that's even better than the Russian nuclear poison and the wierld lebanese crap because there is absolutely no way to check for poisons because it's all dust and no organs and maybe the smart guy wasthe Maoist who made no deals to show up the day after the murdered person was cremated and say he was guilty in an accident, but his wife gave the victim a coke just before she died.............
August 17, 2007 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
10-1 odds that no evening news broadcast will cover the anti-Bush T-shirt story.
August 17, 2007 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
In respect to the fraud uncovered about the washers sold to the Government, I posted this comment that has disappeared. The washer fiasco is small in comparison to that sole source contract awarded to Halliburton during the early days of the Iraq fiasco. I am posting it here again:
As a former Government Contracting Officer, I have continually posted comments on other sites as to why nothing has been done to investigate the award and subsequent administration of the Halliburton sole-source contract. The award of this contract on a sole-source basis is highly questionable and its subsequent management even more so. I seriously doubt that its award was in line with the requirements of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) that governs the award and administration of contracts. (Especially use of the contract over an extended period of time, rather than as a temporary measure.) Some time back, emails attributed to VP Dick "Halliburton" Cheney surfaced, as well as some damaging comments by some of those involved in the contract award, that clearly showed that Cheney was involved in the award to insure that it was awarded to his old company, Halliburton. Since then, only silence! There have been leaks of information clearly indicating the possibility of fraud, such as soft drinks sold to the Government at $4 to $5 a can, illegal payments, lack of enforcing penalties for delays and/or non-compliance with requirements, etc., etc. Fairness to the American tax payer cries out for an extensive look at the Halliburton contract as well as the subcontractors. Will we see it? Probably not until this Administration is booted out of office and someone with the guts to proceed surfaces!
August 20, 2007 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink