Tag: corruption

Do these people have no shame?

The LA Times is reporting that the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles has been trying to ring up impressive numbers – by having his prosecutors going after, well, parking violators:

The disgruntled prosecutors in Los Angeles say they are now spending an exorbitant amount of time working on less significant cases — mail theft, smaller drug offenses and illegal immigration — to reach quotas. They cited the recent disbanding of the office’s public integrity and environmental crimes section, a unit with a history of working on complex police corruption and political corruption cases, as evidence of a shift toward high-volume, low-quality prosecutions . . .

Talk about burying the lede. The Washington Post reported that the U.S. Attorney’s office in Nevada refused to prosecute a Pentagon procurement scandal last year – a scandal which involved (mirabile dictu!) President George Bush. The Pentagon’s Inspector General, which just two weeks ago found serious problems with the testing and procurement of billions of dollars of body armor contracts, looked into the awarding of a $50 million contract to Strategic Message Solutions, a company that, as the Post says, “barely existed” (all emphases added):  

[I]nvestigators concluded that [Air Force Maj. Gen. Stephen M.] Goldfein and others worked inside the Air Force contracting system to favor SMS and its owners, despite an offer by the company that was more than twice as expensive as another bid.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who has followed this issue over the past two-plus years:

The Army can’t be sure some of its body armor met safety standards, partly because it didn’t do proper paperwork on initial testing of the protective vests, a Defense Department audit said.

The Illuminati boards are already discussing ways the US depression will best serve the interests of the 300 globalist parasites at the very top of the food chain.  Not seen nor heard of are the lesser know negative productivity factors of Sarbanes Oxley and it’s ugly global cousin “anti public corruption compliance”.  In the wake of Enron in the US and Siemens in Euorpe clueless clods in “government” made “reforms”.  What they really did is make negative productivity and collosal waste.  Remember with parasites running things it’s not about making good for mankind, it’s about CONTROL of mankind.

It has been a bad week for Health Net in California. On Thursday, the health insurance giant was sued by the Los Angeles city attorney on behalf of all Californians for “illegally cancelling policies to avoid paying large claims.” On Friday, a judge ruled against Health Net in suit brought by a Southern California woman for cancelling her insurance as she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Although both cases might be viewed as victories, they are properly viewed as symptoms of a terminal illness not a cure.

According to this story in the Guardian, today, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia and former Prime Minister Tony Blair are in trouble. Apparently Bandar took a billion pounds as a bribe from the multinational defense contractor and arms producer, BAE, to pressure the British government into halting fraud investigations into BAE activities. Bandar is said to have threatened the British government that they would allow further terrorist attacks to take place in Britain if they continued investigations.

Saudi Arabia’s rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.

Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced “another 7/7” and the loss of “British lives on British streets” if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.

We think of plagues as widespread outbreaks of disease affecting our bodies. The worst recorded plague was the Black Death bubonic plague that killed about one third of the population of Europe in the 14th century. Today, modern nations have conquered the old biological plagues, but a new kind of plague bedevils us: a plague of institutional dishonesty.

The past year has brought revelations of steadily deteriorating conditions in financial institutions. The consistent and widespread character of the problem points to a single cause, the steady advance and normalization of dishonest practices in the financial community. This process of exponentially increasing corruption has now reached an inflection point where serious damage is being caused, as financial markets seize up and major institutions are threatened with collapse.

Yet nowhere in the commentariat is this problem honestly assessed. It is viewed as a mysterious glitch that calls for a quick fix. This essay addresses how institutional dishonesty became a plague and how we can cure ourselves.

We’re talking here about that sunny bright goodness, the very nobility of corporations, that dear, quaint eagerness which just might fade if they were to act legally, and for pay.  Aspects of the AG’s “New Justice”–Lawbreaking Without Consequences–meaning no disrespect or disapprobation, I promise! –will be parsed. (I’ve been watching too much Jane Austen or can’t you tell? – Heh.)

In this corner:

We have the dad, Michael Mukasey, a powerful

figure in charge of JUSTICE in this country,

defending the telecoms, going to bat for the

corporations, for their retroactive immunity

for spying illegally on us.

In the other corner:

We have the son, Marc Mukasey, a young warrior,

defending the telecoms, seeking immunity for

corporations that illegally spy us, turning

over our calls and emails to the government

without warrants.

I’m wondering if it bothers you.

Crossposted on the orange board.

A series of remarkable coincidences

Look up and FAA safety study that was shut down.

Look into the blackwater/portrero connection especially with regard to the fires.

Another coincidence Re: armor holdings: the fire at HP White the day before congressional testimony.

jerry lewis and cerberus

white house fire w/photos 12-19-07

colorado decertification of voting machines

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

http://www.rockymountainnews.c…

riecher suicide

white labs fire re body armor

lott leaves senate just before lobbying rules change

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

In the old days, every single one of these coincidences would’ve been fodder for a full-blown investigative piece.

mukasey’s son represents verizon

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

lute u.n.

http://www.innercitypress.com/…

The neo-Bushit continues.

As Recruiting Number Dwindle, Podhoretz Bangs His Drum

And even the Pentagon has been saying that the Surge failed, and the relative “quiet” right now had nothing to do with it:

From the Pentagon: The Surge didn’t work.

That’s one reason you keep hearing them talk about their legacy, while others try desperately to spin it — they are attempting to pre-fabricate a success out of the worst Presidency in history, and to ideally obscure the complicit role played by the Congressional Republicans and their associated pundits.

The Democrats aren’t playing smart, either, and by pushing their luck that the public will hate the Republicans more as election time approaches, they endanger themselves and the nation further by failing to act ~now~, before the summer campaign season and before BushCo can initiate (directly or indirectly) a nuclear conflict in Iran.

And things need not be this way.