another agency full o' king george appointees

all messed up. their priorities in the pockets of the good ol' white boy network. their cares NOT where they belong. WITH US, the citizens of the united states of america
Labor Dept. Accused of Straying From Enforcement
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer

................Labor activists say that focusing so closely on the concerns of employers shortchanges workers and that a shift in emphasis is long overdue. Under President Bush, they say, the pendulum has swung far away from enforcement, leaving workers vulnerable to dangerous workplaces and with little protection from exploitive employers.

In July, the Government Accountability Office issued a report alleging that the Labor Department did an inadequate job of investigating complaints by low-wage workers who alleged that their employers were stiffing them for overtime, or failing to pay the minimum wage. That report followed another that found troubling inconsistencies in how the department handled individual worker complaints. Department officials have disputed both reports, calling them inaccurate.

Still, they caught the attention of President-elect Barack Obama, who while campaigning in July fired off a letter to Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao expressing "serious concern" that the agency was not fulfilling its enforcement mission.

"It is important that the department put procedures into place that will lead to improvements in the enforcement of workers' rights," Obama wrote. "This is the core mission of the department and failing to adequately enforce the Fair Labor Standards Act is unacceptable." ...............

i've done a few postings

about this already. about us saying to pakistan, 'open wide' then we dump in billions of dollars to their coffers. we don't even care where that money goes. we're not making sure our troops are properly protected. we're not making sure our people who have been subject to natural disasters are adequately housed. we're not making sure our people have adequate health coverage. we're not making sure our children learn PROPER birth control. we're not making sure everyone has equal rights here. we're doing and not doing a LOT of things here where we certainly could use BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. but nope, we're shoving it down the loo

U.S. Funding to Pakistan Plagued With Problems, GAO Report Says

By Robin Wright

Washington Post Staff Writer

The Bush administration has paid Pakistan more than $2 billion without adequate proof that the Pakistani government used the funds for their intended purpose of supporting U.S. counterterrorism efforts, congressional auditors reported yesterday. Their report concluded that more than a third of U.S. funds provided Pakistan since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were subject to accounting problems, including duplication and possible fraud.

The Pentagon paid about $20 million for army road construction and $15 million to build bunkers in Pakistan, but there is no evidence that the roads or bunkers were ever constructed, the Government Accountability Office reported. Islamabad also billed Washington $200 million for an air defense radar system that may not have met a U.S. condition: that reimbursement cover combat or logistical costs supporting U.S. military operations against terrorism beyond what a country would spend on its own needs...........

it 'criticizes'

it's soft. it doesn't say he, well they, LIED. they are DIRECTLY responsible for the deaths of 4,1.04 of our men and women. DIRECTLY responsible and it was for NO reason other than to line their pockets with both oil money and the blood of our sons and daughters and sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers. yet, here we sit. nothing gets done. how can we sleep at night knowing those responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes and goddess only knows what else...well they are not only free, they will NEVER be brought to justice
Government Study Criticizes Bush Administration’s Measures of Progress in Iraq
By JAMES GLANZ
Beyond the declines in overall violence in Iraq, several crucial measures the Bush administration uses to demonstrate economic, political and security progress are either incorrect or far more mixed than the administration has acknowledged, according to a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office.
Over all, the report says, the American plan for a stable Iraq lacks a strategic framework that meshes with the administration’s goals, is falling out of touch with the realities on the ground and contains serious flaws in its operational guidelines.
Newly declassified data in the report on countrywide attacks in May shows that increases in violence during March and April that were touched off by an Iraqi government assault on militias in Basra have given way to a calmer period. Numbers of daily attacks have been comparable to those earlier in the year, representing about a 70 percent decline since June 2007, the data shows.
While those figures confirm the assessments by American military commanders that many of the security improvements that first became apparent last fall are still holding, a number of the figures that have been used to show broader progress in Iraq are either misleading or simply incorrect, the report says.........

yeah, it's getting better all right

in the minds of the good ol' boys

Iraq's healthcare left in disarray after invasion
Sarah Boseley, health editor Wednesday January 16, 2008 The Guardian
The full extent of the destruction of Iraq's healthcare system and the devastating impact it has had on its people is documented today in a new report which indicts the allied invasion force for failing in its duty to protect medical institutions and staff.
The report, by an independent team of researchers and advisers from Iraq, the UK, the US and elsewhere, says the provision of healthcare "has become increasingly difficult" since the invasion. "Doctors and nurses have emigrated en masse, exacerbating existing staff shortages.
"The health system is in disarray owing to the lack of an institutional framework, intermittent electricity, unsafe water, and frequent violations of medical neutrality. The ministry of health and local health authorities are mostly unable to meet these huge challenges, while the activities of UN agencies and non-governmental organisations are severely limited."...............

see what i mean?
GAO questions report on Iraq
GAO Says Figures in Administration's September 'Benchmark' Report Were Unreliable
PAULINE JELINEK AP News
The Bush administration, in its last so-called Iraq "benchmark" report, used questionable financial data to assert that the Baghdad government was making progress in managing its budget, a new study says. The study released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office focused specifically on whether Iraqis were spending their capital budget, that is money for infrastructure needed to boost the country's lagging economic growth and improve poor public services.
The administration reported in its September Iraqi benchmark assessment that Iraq's central government ministries had spent 24 percent of their 2007 capital projects budget as of July 15, 2007. "This report is not consistent with Iraq's official expenditure reports," which show that the central ministries had spent only 4.4 percent of their investment budget as of August, the GAO said. It said capital projects are 90 percent of Iraq's investment budget.....

the truth about the numbers

did the msm pick this up? NOT that i saw

Exclusive: Petraeus' Sectarian Death Count Methodology
By Spencer Ackerman
In the debate over the surge, there have been a number of questions raised within the government about an important metric for understanding whether the U.S. military's strategy is succeeding -- how Multinational Force-Iraq calculates sectarian violence.
Earlier this month, David Walker of the Government Accountability Office testified that he could not "get comfortable" with General David Petraeus' methodology for determining sectarianism, considering it too inferential to be reliable. His report, echoing objections from senior intelligence officials, instead tabulated the pace of attacks on civilians and found the surge didn't appear to have a significant effect on civilian-targeted violence. However, relying on data interpreted through the MNF-I methodology, Petraeus testified that sectarian violence had fallen in Iraq to mid-2006 levels.
The actual methodology MNF-I employs has remained unknown. Until now.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request I filed two weeks ago, MNF-I has provided TPMmuckraker with its criteria for identifying ethnic and sectarian violence. We've added the methodology to our Document Collection, and you can read it here. ........

some people lose their car keys

and some lose 190,000 WEAPONS
(not the first time i mentioned this story)
US cannot account for 190,000 guns in Iraq: report

The US government cannot account for 190,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to an investigation carried out by the Government Accountability Office.
According to the July 31 report, the military "cannot fully account for about 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armour and 115,000 helmets reported as issued to Iraqi forces."
The weapons disappeared from records between June 2004 and September 2005, as the military struggled to rebuild the disbanded Iraqi forces from scratch amid increasing attacks from Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.
Since 2004 the military "has not consistently collected supporting records confirming the dates the equipment was received, the quantities of equipment delivered, or the Iraqi units receiving the items," the report said.
"Since 2006 the command has placed greater emphasis on collecting the supporting documents. However, GAO's review of the January 2007 property books found continuing problems with missing and incomplete records."..........

update: monday august 6th: the wapo finally prints the story (a couple of days after other sources i might add)

Weapons Given to Iraq Are Missing
GAO Estimates 30% of Arms Are Unaccounted For


By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer

The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.
The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction..........

30%? 30% is a GIANT number. that's a load o' weapsons to go 'missing'

i just get a warm and fuzzy

don't you?

(hey chertoff, what does your GUT say about THIS? no wonder you have a GUT feeling about a terrorist threat, huh!)

Sting Reveals Security Gap at Nuclear Agency

security GAP? it's more like a F**KING security GRAND CANYON

By Kathleen Day Washington Post Staff Writer

Undercover congressional investigators posing as West Virginia businessmen obtained a license with almost no scrutiny from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that enabled them to buy enough radioactive material from U.S. suppliers to build a "dirty bomb," a new government report says.
The investigators obtained the license within 28 days from officials at the NRC, the federal agency that in addition to regulating nuclear power plants oversees radioactive materials used in health care and industry, the report by the Government Accountability Office says. NRC officials approved the request with a minimal background check that included no face-to-face interview or visit to the purported company to ensure it existed and complied with safety rules, the report says.......

(by the way, charlton heston uttered one of my favorite lines of ALL times in a movie called something like 'the lost treasure of the incas' - i'm too lazy to actually look it up right now - BIT ima sumac was in it and that's ALL you have to know. anyway, big chuck says something like, 'GET AWAY FROM ME YOU BIG TUB O' GUTS'.

Homeland security chair responds to Chertoff's 'gut'

Will Menaker

Following yesterday's statement by Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff that his remarks on the increased risk of terrorism this summer were based "on a gut feeling," the Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson has sent a letter to Chertoff demanding an explanation, "what color code in the Homeland Security Advisory System is associated with a 'gut feeling?' What sectors should be on alert as a result of your “gut feeling?”
The letter states, "Over the past five years, tens of billions of taxpayer dollars have been dedicated to standing up and building capacity at the Department of Homeland Security. The Department of Homeland Security is charged with deterring, preventing and responding to the threat of terrorism. To that end, systems have been erected to identify risks and communicate them to the American public. With all the resources you have at your disposal and all the progress that you assure us that you are making, I cannot understand why you are quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying you have a 'gut feeling' that we are entering a period of heightened risk this summer."........

picture: mr tub o' guts and the king: whitehouse.gov

how safe does this

make YOU feel?

(i know it makes me want to puke my guts up)

Report blasts U.S. for failures in fighting terrorism

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A just-released report slams the federal government for failing to coordinate the work of U.S. law enforcement agencies overseas to fight terrorism.
The Government Accountability Office found that in one country a lack of clarity about the roles and responsibilities of the FBI and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency may have compromised several investigations intended to identify and disrupt potential terrorist activities.
The GAO did not name the country in its report.
The White House has long issued directives asking that U.S. law enforcement agencies assist foreign nations' anti-terrorism efforts.
But the report finds that embassy and law enforcement officials told the GAO "they had received little or no guidance" on how to accomplish that.
The issue of roles and responsibilities "remains unresolved and is still subject to ongoing debates within the administration," it said.
The 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism instructed the State Department to develop and coordinate U.S. counterterrorism policy abroad, but the report says that was not done.........