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Below
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These news articles include revealing information on the rise in no-bid
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Iraq corruption whistleblowers face
penaltiesAugust 25, 2007, MSNBC/Associated
Presshttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20430153/
One
after
another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption
in
the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.
Or worse. For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald
Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security
compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods. He
had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling
the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers — all
of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. The buyers
were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and
Iraqi embassy and ministry employees. The seller, he claimed, was the
Iraqi-owned company he worked for, Shield Group Security Co. “It was a
Wal-Mart for guns,” he says. “It was all illegal and everyone knew it.”
So
Vance says he blew the whistle, supplying photos and documents and other
intelligence to an FBI agent in his hometown of Chicago because he didn’t
know whom to trust in Iraq. For his trouble, he says, he got 97 days in
Camp Cropper, an American military prison outside Baghdad. Congress gave
more than $30 billion to rebuild Iraq, and at least $8.8 billion of it
has
disappeared.
“If you do it, you will be destroyed,” said
William Weaver, professor of political science at the University of
Texas-El Paso and senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition.
“Reconstruction is so rife with corruption.
Sometimes people ask me, ‘Should I do this?’ And my answer is no. If
they’re married, they’ll lose their family. They will lose their jobs.
They will lose everything,” Weaver said.
Music Manager, Film Producer Dies at
64August 25, 2007, Washington
Posthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/25/AR2007082501113.html
Aaron
Russo, who managed Bette Midler and went on to produce such films as
"Trading Places," has died. He was 64. Russo died from cancer before dawn
on Friday, surrounded by family at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said
Heidi
Gregg. Russo had been battling the disease for nearly six years. "He was
my
best friend for 27 years," said Gregg. "Aaron was a freedom fighter, a
film
maker and a lover of life." Russo ... began promoting rock and roll shows
at a local theater while still in high school. He later ... promoted some
of the most successful rock acts of the 1960s including Janis Joplin and
The Grateful Dead. In the 1970s, Russo managed Bette Midler, producing
the
Tony award winning "Clams on the Half-Shell Revue" starring the singer.
Russo eventually turned to producing feature films including "The Rose"
which starred Midler in 1979 as a self destructive rock star, and later
"Trading Places" in 1983 which starred Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.
Russo was also a long time political activist. In 2006, Russo
finished work on a documentary titled "America:
Freedom to Fascism," which was billed as an expose of the Internal
Revenue Service. "He was an absolutely amazing man," said Ilona
Urban, his press secretary. "He was pointed and once he knew there was a
direction to go, you couldn't get him to turn left or right. He was very
committed."
Note:Aaron Russo was one of the few respected film makers who dared to reveal
some of the major cover-ups going on behind the scenes in the world of
banking and more. To view his highly popular, five-star-rated 2006
documentary on this topic, America: From Freedom to Fascism, click
here.
Telecom Firms Helped With Government's
Warrantless WiretapsAugust 24, 2007, Washington
Posthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/23/AR2007082302056.html
The Bush
administration acknowledged for the first time that telecommunications
companies assisted the government's warrantless surveillance program and
were being sued as a result, an admission some legal experts say could
complicate the government's bid to halt numerous lawsuits challenging the
program's legality. "[U]nder the president's program, the terrorist
surveillance program, the private sector had assisted us," Director of
National Intelligence Mike McConnell said in an interview with the El
Paso
Times. His statement could help plaintiffs in dozens of lawsuits against
the telecom companies, which allege that the companies participated in a
wiretapping program that violated Americans' privacy rights. David Kris,
a
former Justice Department official, ... said McConnell's admission makes
it
difficult to argue that the phone companies' cooperation with the
government is a state secret.
"It's going to be tough to continue
to call it 'alleged' when he's just admitted it," Kris said. McConnell
has
just added to "the list of publicly available facts that are no longer
state secrets," increasing the plaintiffs' chances that their cases can
proceed, Kris said. McConnell's statement "does serious damage
to
the government's state secrets claims that are at the heart of its
defenses," said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Bruce
Fein, an associate deputy attorney general in the Reagan administration,
said that McConnell's disclosure shows that "an important element of a
program can be discussed publicly and openly without endangering the
nation. These Cassandran cries that the earth is going to fall every time
you have a discussion simply are not borne out by the facts," he
said.
Federal No-Bid Contracts On RiseAugust 22, 2007, Washington
Posthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/22/AR2007082200049.html
Last
year, officials at the Department of Homeland Security's
counter-narcotics
office took a shortcut that has become common at federal agencies: They
hired help through a no-bid contract. And the firm they hired showed them
how to do it. A contract worth up to $579,000 was awarded to the
consultant's firm in September.
Though small by government standards, the counter-narcotics contract
illustrates the government's steady move away from relying on competition
to secure the best deals for products and services. A recent
congressional
report estimated that federal spending on contracts awarded without "full
and open" competition has tripled, to $207 billion, since 2000, with a
$60
billion increase last year alone. The category includes deals in which
officials take advantage of provisions allowing them to sidestep
competition for speed and convenience and cases in which the government
sharply limits the number of bidders or expands work under open-ended
contracts. Government auditors say the result is often higher prices for
taxpayers and an undue reliance on a limited number of contractors. "The
rapid growth in no-bid and limited-competition contracts has made full
and
open competition the exception, not the rule," according to the report,
by
the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Keith Ashdown, chief
investigator at Taxpayers for Common
Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said that in many cases,
officials are simply choosing favored contractors as part of a
"club mentality." "Contracting officials are throwing out decades of work
to develop fair and sensible rules to promote competition," Ashdown said.
"Government officials are skirting the rules in favor of expediency or
their favored contractors." Suit: Oil giants fixed prices for 23,000 gas
station ownersAugust 22, 2007, USA
Today/Associated Presshttp://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2007-08-22-gas-lawsuit_N.htm
Nearly
two dozen gas station owners in California [have] sued Shell Oil, Chevron
(CVX) and Saudi Refining ... claiming the companies conspired to fix
prices for 23,000 franchise owners nationwide. The plaintiffs ... say
chairmen of the three oil companies met privately nearly every month
starting in March 1996 for the "purpose of forming and organizing a
combination." The lawsuit alleges executives destroyed documents from the
meetings, and a defunct joint venture violated U.S. antitrust laws and
caused artificially high wholesale gas prices in nearly every state from
1999 to 2001. The lawsuit hinges on a marketing deal that, plaintiffs
say,
allowed former rivals to collude on prices starting in 1998, when Shell
and
Texaco formed Equilon Enterprises [and] Motiva Enterprises LLC. Equilon
and
Motiva began operating when ... crude oil prices hit their lowest levels
since the Great Depression, according to ... lawyer Joseph M. Alioto, who
[represents] the plaintiffs. Yet
gas prices soared for franchise
owners, forcing them to pass on the cost to consumers or cut profit
margins. "These executives get together and say, 'OK, we're going to
raise
Texaco's price to Shell's price, then we're going to raise both of them
50
to 75%, and we're going to do it after we've already had all these cost
savings,'" Alioto said. [He] argues wholesale prices were higher
by at least 20 cents a gallon and possibly as much as 40 cents per gallon
from 1999 to 2001. Station owners had little choice but to pay higher
prices. Franchises typically sign long-term contracts with oil suppliers,
making it tough to switch to another brand or an independent
supplier.
Some Amish in Mich. resist electronic ID tags
for cattleAugust 19, 2007, Associated
Presshttp://www.mlive.com/newsflash/michigan/index.ssf?/base/news-46/1187539862261260.xml
Some
Amish farmers say a state requirement that they tag cattle with
electronic
chips is a violation of their religious beliefs. Last year, the state
Department of Agriculture announced that Michigan cattle leaving farms
must be tagged in the ear with electronic identification as part
of an effort to combat bovine tuberculosis. That has drawn some
resistance
from the Amish, who typically shun technology. In April, Glen Mast and
other Amish farmers appeared before the state Senate Appropriations
Committee, urging it to block the program. "We're never happier than when
we're just left alone," said Mast, whose farm in Isabella County operates
without electricity. "That's all we're asking." State officials say the
ability to trace food sources is increasingly important in the global
economy. State officials said cattle are to be tagged if they are leaving
the farm to be sold or change ownership. Kevin Kirk, who coordinates the
program for the state agriculture department, said Amish farmers produced
a "very, very small" percentage of the nearly 397 million pounds of beef
sold by Michigan farmers last year. "Our No. 1 goal is animal health,
human health and food safety," Kirk said. "I know it's hard sometimes to
trust the government, but that's what we're asking is trust us." So far,
the state has not forced the Amish to use the electronic tags but said
they can wait until the animals arrive at an auction before having them
applied, the newspaper said. Animal identification has traditionally
involved a plastic or metal tag, or tattoo. Electronic ID uses a radio
frequency device with a number unique to each animal, and speeds up the
ability to locate or trace animals.
Note:To read an article that explains in more depth how the attitude of the
Amish to the use of electronic chips on their cattle is that it is the
"mark of the beast" in Bible prophecy, click
here.
Robot wars are a reality
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