1. More privatization success for the Bush administration! The Washington Post reports Private debt collectors cost IRS more than they raise.

   The Internal Revenue Service expects to lose more than $37 million by using private debt collectors to pursue tax scofflaws through a program… Since 2006, the agency has used three companies to go after a $1 billion slice of the nation’s unpaid taxes. Despite aggressive collection tactics, the companies have rounded up only $49 million, little more than half of what it has cost the IRS to implement the program. The debt collectors have pocketed commissions of up to 24 percent.

   Now, as Americans file their 2007 taxes, Democratic leaders want to end the effort…

   After years of lobbying by the private collection industry, the Republican-controlled Congress created the program in 2004…

   Three firms were awarded contracts: Pioneer Credit Recovery, based in the western New York district represented by Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R), who supported the program and recently announced his retirement; the CBE Group of Waterloo, Iowa, the home state of Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R), who helped create the program; and Linebarger Goggan Blair and Sampson, a law firm based in Texas, home to President Bush.

   The price to buy Congress is so incredibly cheap. Since 2001, Bush and Congress combined have done more harm to the United States than any terrorist group or foreign agents.

2. Condé Nast Portfolio reports on The Pentagon’s $1 Trillion Problem “The defense department has spent billions to fix its antiquated financial systems. So why does the Pentagon still have no idea where its money goes?” (Hat tip Wired’s Danger Room.)

   Since 2004, the Pentagon has spent roughly $16 billion annually to maintain and modernize the military’s business systems, but most are as unreliable as ever-even as the surge in defense spending is creating more room for error. The basic defense budget for 2007 was $439.3 billion, up 48 percent from 2001, excluding the vast additional sums appropriated for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to federal regulators and current and former Pentagon officials, the accounting process is so obsolete and error prone that it’s virtually impossible to tell where much of this money ends up. While the department’s brass has made a few patchwork improvements, billions are still unaccounted for. The problem is so deeply rooted that, 18 years after Congress required major federal agencies to be audited, the Pentagon still can’t be…

   For the first three quarters of 2007, $1.1 trillion in Army accounting entries hadn’t been properly reviewed and substantiated, according to the Department of Defense’s inspector general. In 2006, $258.2 billion of recorded withdrawals and payments from the Army’s main account were unsupported. It’s as if the Army had submitted multibillion-dollar expense reports without any receipts.

   Preoccupied with protecting their turf, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines continue to maintain separate, increasingly outdated systems that can’t talk to each other, trace disbursements, or detect overbilling by contractors. At the Indianapolis facility, as at the Defense Department’s four other main U.S. centers for financial operations, accounting programs under the same roof can’t share information without extensive jury-rigging, as though contracts, payments, and accounting had nothing to do with one another…

   Nevertheless, the four military services still can’t be audited…

   Perfect!

Four at Four continues below the fold with more cheery news of the decline of America, including the bottomless plummet of the economy, more evidence the “surge” is really working, and is Ariana Huffington really helping the left? Plus the Idiot of the Day.

1. The Washington Post reports Rising food costs unravel schools nutrition initiatives. “Sharp rises in the cost of milk, grain and fresh fruits and vegetables are hitting cafeterias across the country, forcing cash-strapped schools to raise prices or pinch pennies by serving more economical dishes. Some school officials on a mission to help fight childhood obesity say it’s becoming harder to fill students’ plates with healthy, low-fat foods… This year, the U.S. Agriculture Department is giving schools $2.47 per lunch to serve free meals to children from the poorest families, up from $2.40 last year, a 3 percent increase. In the same time, milk prices rose about 17 percent and bread nearly 12 percent… The average cost of preparing and serving a school lunch runs from about $2.70 to $3.10, according to the School Nutrition Association.”

   This is just the begining of the impact on the food crisis here in the Unite States. Worldwide, Spiegel reports on The fury of the poor; people are dying before our eyes. “Around the world, rising food prices have made basic staples like rice and corn unaffordable for many people, pushing the poor to the barricades because they can no longer get enough to eat. But the worst is yet to come… Food is become increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is already unaffordable for many people. The world’s 200 wealthiest people have as much money as about 40 percent of the global population, and yet 850 million people have to go to bed hungry every night.”

   Meanwhile, The New York Times reports Despite tough times, the ultrarich keep spending. “We’re trying to spend on what we feel is important,” one said.

Four at Four continues below the fold with stories about greenhouse gas emissions, “The Madness of Ben Bernanke”, and 1,300 fired for desertion in Iraq.

1. The New York Times reports Gunmen kill aide to al-Sadr in Iraq. Sayyed Riyadh al-Nuri, “a senior aide of Moktada al-Sadr… was killed in Najaf, the Shiite holy city south of Baghdad, as he returned home from prayers on Friday in what Sadrists officials said was an assassination carried out by unknown gunmen.” So, who could have carried out the assassination? Don’t know, but there are a lot of mercenaries in Iraq. “The killing is certain to increase tensions between Mr. Sadr’s Mahdi Army and government security forces, who fought a huge battle in Basra last month and have been engaged in heavy fighting in Mr. Sadr’s eastern Baghdad stronghold, Sadr City.”

   Meanwhile, the AP reports “Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday he doubts that radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr… would be subject to arrest by U.S. forces… When pressed about the prospect of arresting al-Sadr, he added, ‘I would be surprised along those lines _ a move to arrest him. He is a significant political figure. We want him to work within the political process. He has a large following. It is important that he become a part of the process, if he is not already.'”

   Arrest al-Sadr? Right, you and whose army? We saw how inept the Iraqi army was in Basra last month and does the Bush administration really want to drive up the U.S. casualties this summer? Plus, since al-Sadr is the man who apparently can turn the violence on or off in Iraq, arresting him would mean no one is controlling the spigot.

   According to Reuters, Iran cleric rejects Bush’s accusations on Iraq.

   “Iran has never interfered in Iraq … such claims are sheer lies made by Iraq’s occupiers to continue Iraq’s occupation,” Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a senior advisor to Iran’s top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told worshippers in a Friday prayers sermon at Tehran University.

   “Iran supports the establishment of peace, security and freedom in Iraq as well as the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq,” added Rafsanjani, also head of a powerful arbitrary body.

   Bush, who has accused Iran of backing militant groups in southern Iraq and providing explosives to extremists in the country, said Tehran had to choose between peace or war… The United States also is leading efforts to isolate Iran over its nuclear program, which the West fears is a cover to acquire nuclear bombs. Tehran says its atomic work is solely to generate electricity.

   And, Bush has been a big advocate of nuclear energy… They’re all nuts.

1. The Los Angeles Times reports the Bush administration hopes to admit more Iraq refugees. “State Department officials, who have been harshly criticized for moving too slowly in allowing Iraqi refugees into the U.S., issued new immigration figures Wednesday and suggested they may reach a goal of admitting 12,000 refugees this fiscal year. Government figures show that 2,627 Iraqis have been cleared to enter the country since Oct. 1… The administration did not meet its 2007 goal… Between 2003 and 2006, about 5,000 of the estimated 2 million Iraqis who fled their country came to the United States”.

   Compare the 5,000 (to 6,000) we’ve allowed to move to the U.S. with the 40,000 Sweden let move to their country. But now, the Washington Post reports Iraqi refugees find Sweden’s doors closing.

   Sweden, which has one of the world’s most welcoming refugee policies, has become the new home of 40,000 Iraqis since the war began in 2003. Last year alone, more than 18,000 Iraqi refugees came to Sweden. According to the State Department, the United States has taken in roughly 6,000 Iraqis in programs for refugees and translators…

   The national government budgets $30,000 to help settle each person granted asylum. It pays for Swedish language classes, helps with housing and job training and pays a monthly allowance for living expenses…

   According to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, 4.5 million Iraqis have been forced out of their homes. Half of them are still in Iraq, and 2 million have fled to neighboring countries, particularly Syria and Jordan, where most live in poor and crowded conditions. For the Middle East, “it’s the greatest refugee catastrophe since 1948,” the year Israel was born, said Tobias Billstrom, Sweden’s minister for migration.

   The world has a “moral obligation” to help these people, Billstrom said. If the United States accepted as many people per capita as Sweden, a nation of 9 million, he said, it would have taken in 500,000 refugees.

   The U.S. no longer has the moral high ground, if it ever did.

More issues of morality can be found below the fold as Four at Four continues…

A story that has been bubbling up in Mexico finally has made its way back to the surface in the U.S. news. The New York Times reports State oil industry’s future sets off tussle in Mexico.

A bitter debate over what to do about Mexico’s ailing state oil monopoly has dominated national politics here in recent weeks, tapping strong emotions on both sides and resurrecting the political fortunes of the leftist leader who narrowly lost the 2006 presidential election.

The corporate framing is immediate in the opening graph of the story, but that’s not unsurprising from the NY Times. What is surprising is that normally stories from Mexico do not often make the news in the United States. This story is different, because: “At stake in the debate is not only the future of the Mexican economy but also the supply of oil to the United States.” Even news from Mexico is framed by the interests of the United States. As of 2007, Mexico still had an estimated 12.4 billion barrels of untapped oil reserves, or 10 percent of the world’s crude, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

1. The Los Angeles Times reports Violence in Iraq kills 2 U.S. soldiers and 11 Sadr city residents. “Today marked the fifth anniversary of the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s regime” and “the U.S. military announced the deaths of two soldiers, bringing to 4,028 the number of American troops killed in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003”. “Today’s casualties included seven civilians killed when a mortar round or rocket hit a residential area, police said. In another part of Sadr City, projectiles hit a house and a tent erected for a funeral, killing four people. Police said it was unclear if the hits came from mortars or from U.S. helicopters, which have conducted airstrikes in the neighborhood.”

   Meanwhile, Congress isn’t going to do anything about Iraq. The LA Times reports that Democrats backing a troop pullout see the fall election as the only hope for changing U.S. policy in Iraq.

   “It is clear that we do not have the votes,” said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who was among the first Senate Democrats to push for a binding troop withdrawal timeline. “The American people are going to speak in November.”

   Kerry and other Democrats have repeatedly failed over the last year to persuade more than a few Republicans, who can block legislation in the Senate with a filibuster, to break with President Bush and force him to bring troops home.

   Not every antiwar lawmaker has accepted the futility of insisting on a congressionally mandated withdrawal.

   “We should not be waiting around,” said Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), one of the leading advocates of a pullout. “We must redeploy our troops to break the paralysis that now grips U.S. strategy in the region.”

   In the House, leaders of the influential Out of Iraq Caucus, who last year helped push congressional Democrats to back a timeline for withdrawing troops, are, like Feingold, also threatening to oppose any additional funding for the war.

   The House is scheduled to consider Bush’s next war funding request in May.

   My bold prediction: the Democrats in Congress will sell us out and give more borrowed money to Bush. They will justify it with the same lies.

2. The New York Times reports that Dundalk, Ireland is Reconsidering energy from the town up. Dundalk’s “goal is innovation on a local scale, developing clean energy sources and reducing energy demand in a 1.5-square-mile site called a Sustainable Energy Zone. The project is part of a European Union program to encourage pilot projects that can be scaled up to regional or national levels.”

   Some of the current projects are literally high profile. The first thing a visitor spots is a wind turbine 200 feet high that has dominated the campus of the Dundalk Institute of Technology since 2005… Self-powered streetlights being tested on the campus and in the industrial park also draw curious looks because their small wind turbines and solar panels make them appear as if they are ready for liftoff.

   But most of the work is less obvious or is in the planning stage. For example, a wood-fueled system with a gas boiler backup will deliver heat and hot water to many buildings in the zone through underground pipes…

   Energy conservation in the zone means improving the insulation for both new and existing homes. And Sustainable Energy Ireland says that by 2010, renewable energy will account for at least 20 percent of the heat in the zone and at least 20 percent of the electricity used by businesses.

   Another example of a distributed, localized energy generation at the point of use. The solution to our energy problems, I believe, will not be solved by massive, centralized systems.

1. Today before Congress, Gen. David Petraeus, Ambassador Ryan Crocker, Sen. John McCain, and their supporters will sell more war. They undoubtedly will claim the “surge” has worked, which it hasn’t, and that the “relative calm” in Iraq, which there isn’t, is “fragile and reversable”, which is code for stay forever. The reality is the “surge” bought Bush’s ego about five months.

   The reality is this. The fighting in Iraq continues and people are still being killed. The Bush administration and their Congressional enablers keep borrowing and spending billions, trillions of dollars we Americans cannot afford on building an empire for the corporate ruling class.

   ^Continues…

The first story continues below the fold with a look at what is happening in Iraq as the warmongers go before Congress. Plus stories about mapping U.S. CO2 emissions, a dire warning out our CO2 emissions, and Calderón’s plan to privatize PEMEX, Mexico’s oil industry.

1. The fighting continues in occupied Iraq. The New York Times reports U.S. and Iraqis battle militias to end attacks. How’s that for an ironic headline? “American and Iraqi troops sought to control neighborhoods used by Shiite militias to fire rockets and mortars into the nearby Green Zone. But the operation failed to stop the attacks…” No! In a conflict where every one person killed creates ten more people who hate you, how does the Bush administration believe they can stop the attacks by killing more people? The only way for this strategy to work is for genocide.

   “Altogether, at least three American soldiers were killed and 31 wounded in attacks in Baghdad on Sunday, and at least 20 Iraqis were killed, mostly in Sadr City.” Okay, so by my calculation (20 * 10), the Bush administration created 200 more people who are now even more angry with the U.S. But don’t let the sentiment in Iraq or the United States stop you George. “The immediate concern of the American forces was more tactical: trying to shut down the mortar and rocket attacks that have become a daily problem for the Green Zone.” Of course, if you remove the targets (i.e. Americans and the puppet government) from the Green Zone, you could also stop the attacks.

   “Over the past week, Mr. Maliki has also been trying to recoup the political damage he sustained when his American-supported military assault in Basra met with intense resistance from militias.” South Vietnam?

Four at Four continues below the fold with news from Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, and McIraq.

1. According to the Washington Post the Basra Assault Exposed U.S. and Iraqi Limits. “When Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched an offensive in Basra last week, he consulted only his inner circle of advisers. There were no debates in parliament or among his political allies. Senior American officials were notified only a few days before the operation began… The offensive, which triggered clashes across southern Iraq and in Baghdad that left about 600 people dead, unveiled the weaknesses of Maliki’s U.S.-backed government and his brash style of leadership.” Personally, I do not believe Maliki thought up of the confrontation in Basra in a vacuum.

   “On many levels, the offensive strengthened the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. The United States has spent more than $22 billion to build up Iraq’s security forces, but they were unable to quell the militias.” Not only where Iraq’s military no match to the militias, The New York Times reports “More than 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and policemen either refused to fight or simply abandoned their posts during the inconclusive assault against Shiite militias in Basra last week… Iraqi military officials said the group included dozens of officers, including at least two senior field commanders in the battle.” This is not their war and the Iraqis know this. They aren’t going to fight for Bush’s agenda.

   The WaPo story suggests the biggest winner in the Basra wasn’t Sadr, but “it was Iran that helped broker an end to the clashes, enhancing its image and illustrating its influence over Iraq’s political players.”

   This is what I think happened. The Bush administration pressured Maliki to confront fellow Shi’ite Sadr to either prove Iraq’s security forces were ‘up to their job’ or to provoke Iran in some way. Either success or defeat would fit the Bush administration’s political agenda. According to WaPo, an anonymous senior official in Iraq’s Defense Ministry claimed “as the fighting progressed… the militias received weapons from Iran, including mortars and other large weapons”. The Iranians deny these charges.

   While it is seemingly okay for British and American forces to back their surrogate in the fight, Iran is depicted as meddling in the factional fight. According to this official, the militias had between 12,000 and 15,000 fighters, about the the same number as Iraqi troops. But, “if the British and American forces were not there, the Mahdi Army would have gained a victory,” he said. Meanwhile, according to the Post, “Many Sunnis now view Iran as a greater enemy than the United States.” We are taking sides in a centuries old disagreement about Islam.

Four at Four continues below the fold with stories about Iraq’s Christian refugees, 81% of Americans disapprove of where we’re headed as a country, and a profile of the artist who made the iconic migrant crossing highway sign.

1. Moqtada al-Sadr, fresh off his win in Basra, has called for Protests to mark 5th anniversary of fall of Baghdad, according to The Guardian. In a statement released by Sadr, he said:

   The time has come to express your rejections and raise your voices loud against the unjust occupier and enemy of nations and humanity, and against the horrible massacres committed by the occupier against our honourable people.

   “The Shia cleric’s call to action came as Iraqi police said six civilians were killed in an air strike. The US military said the air strike destroyed a house and killed one militant.” Bush and Sadr can turn the violence on in Iraq with a flip of the switch and the one that controls the violence controls Iraq. The difference is Bush can’t turn the violence off, while it appears Sadr can.

   Meanwhile, McClatchy Newspapers report Baghdad’s Sadr City mourns its dead and injured. “U.S. airstrikes aimed at militants plague the population.” In the Imam Ali Hospital, four year olds are operated on to remove shrapnel and children lie limbless and horribly burned. Parents mourn the deaths of their children and wonder why this is happening. Some blame the U.S. military.

   “They are oppressors,” he said. “Shouldn’t they attack those that hold weapons against them? I swear to God, since we’ve lived here, the biggest weapon we have is the knife we use to cut the meat.”

   For each person we kill in the Middle East, America makes ten enemies. The aftermath of Basra left the Bush puppet regime of Nouri al-Maliki weakened, Iran strengthened, and the British bogged down in Iraq.

Below the fold is the suspension of your rights, an update on the economy, China’s spies, and octopus sex.

1. Bloomberg reports IMF Cuts Global Forecast on Worst Crisis Since 1930s. The International Monetary Fund said there’s a 25 percent chance of a world recession and…

   The financial shock that originated in the U.S. subprime mortgage market in August 2007 has spread quickly, and in unanticipated ways, to inflict extensive damage on markets and institutions at the core of the financial system… The global expansion is losing momentum in the face of what has become the largest financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression.

   “The IMF forecasts were on a slide presentation prepared by its Asia-Pacific department” and new forecasts are schedule to be published April 9. Of course, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is more interested in further deregulating the financial markets, described the IMF’s analysis as “overblown“.

   Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that “Ben S. Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, presented his bleakest assessment yet of the economy on Wednesday morning, warning a Congressional committee that economic growth was likely to stagnate – and perhaps even contract – over the first half of the year.”

   With the dying U.S. economy, more attention is being paid to John McCain’s financial advisors, or as the Washington Post reports Economic slump underlines concerns about McCain advisers. Former Republican senator Phil Gramm “helped deregulate the financial services industries in the 1990s, and now sits in the corporate suites of Swiss banking giant UBS, which yesterday announced $19 billion in investment losses tied to the crumbling U.S. real estate market… Gramm, UBS’s vice chairman, said yesterday he was ‘totally unaware‘ of his bank’s massive holdings of securities tied to subprime mortgages, but, he added, ‘I’m confident we’ll recover.'”

   Gramm was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee in 1999 and under his misguided leadership, “tore down the Depression-era Glass-Steagall wall separating regulated commercial banks from largely unregulated investment banks. And little regulation was put in to replace it.” So Gramm is directly responsible for the current subprime mortgage mess and is clueless about his own bank. Feel confident in John McCain?

Four at Four continues with ‘terror’ financing and shipping from our good friends in Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., John Yoo’s torture memo, and an update on Big Brother.