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POPSBlackwater:Ain't Misbehaving, Saving My Contracts for You
Of course the US government was blind to this - they didn't want to know, they turned a blind eye to what Blackwater was doing because it would have been too hard to arrange for another contractor to do all the security missions that it had ongoing. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, there are as many private contractors as there are uniformed military personnel. Most of them are not security guards as Blackwater's most visible function was. The lack of oversight is abhorrent but not surprising; the State Dept's failure to can this company is inexcusable. My only observation on this article is to suggest how the US government got into this predicament, and it's pretty easy to see. The Bush administration wanted to hold onto the fiction of a few conservative principles, one of those being the concept of a small federal government. Since it already blew that "principle" with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, I'm betting there was White House guidance that directed "no mo
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POPSOur Tax Dollars At Work-Blackwater
More from the article as follows: "The Nisour Square shooting was the bloodiest and most controversial episode involving Blackwater in the Iraq war. At midday on Sept. 16, 2007, a Blackwater convoy opened fire on Iraqi civilians in the crowded intersection, spraying automatic weapons fire in ways that investigators later claimed was indiscriminate, and even launching grenades into a nearby school. Seventeen Iraqis were killed and dozens more were wounded." "Those responses deeply worried Blackwater officials. Before the Nisour Square shootings, the company had operated in Iraq without a license largely because the Iraqi government had never enforced the rules. Being blocked from the country would have been costly — the State Department deal was Blackwater’s single biggest contract. From 2004 through today, the company has collected more than $1.5 billion for its work protecting American diplomats and providing air transportation for them inside Iraq." "
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POPSBarbara Ehrenreich: The Swine Flu Vaccine Screw-up More: According to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the government was misled by these companies, which failed to report manufacturing delays as they arose. Her department, she says, was "relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers, and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy." If, in fact, there's a political parable here, it's about Big Government's sweetly trusting reliance on Big Business to safeguard the public health: Let the private insurance companies manage health financing; let profit-making hospital chains deliver health care; let Big Pharma provide safe and affordable medications. As it happens, though, all these entities have a priority that regularly overrides the public's health, and that is, of course, profit…
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POPSOink Report - 3 November 2009 I am so glad that children who won't be born for decades yet will be paying the interest on the money spent to keep the Merry-Go-Round Museum open. That must save or create a gajillion jobs.
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POPSThings to Know Before you Choose a Call Center Businesses spend a lot of money in marketing and advertising their products and services. Unless the right call center is chosen, all those efforts and dollars will be wasted. Most call centers function just like an answering service even for sales calls; they simply do NOT convince callers to buy the product/service. The right call center will ultimately get the best bang for your buck and also reduce your need to manage the campaign. It will give you the time and energy to do what you want to do - focus on YOUR business.
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POPSU.S. Offshoring and Multinational Corporations Perhaps the ultimate expression of capitalism results in the export of jobs to lowest-cost countries to enable what used to be “American companies”, now multinational corporations that have the sole goal of maximizing their corporate profits. The ultimate political expression has evolved to a sector of the world that is, in effect, ruled by multinational corporations. What is worse is that these multinationals fail to realize that ultimately they are undercutting their own profits and shrinking their own market by underminding their own profit center in formerly prosperous prime economies. The bonus from offshoring can only last so long and is highly subject to proper application and use within a given multinational corporation. Offshoring is not a cure-all for corporate profits, nor a real solution for long-term benefit to anyone. No government contracts should be given to multinational corporations, ever!
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POPSCIT The Aftermath of BK There are alternatives for clients of CIT. In the factoring industry there is enough capacity to handle the runoff. One very good solution is the Receivables Exchange whom we represent and are an approved introducing firm. The real concern in pursuing new business contracts is the release of the existing contracts and UCC filings.
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POPSLegal Translation With the population of non-English speaking citizens and undocumented workers on the rise in the United States, the court system and law firms need to quickly adopt to changing demographics and accommodate these people's needs. As a result, the need for bilingual legal document translation professionals should continue to rise as evidentiary papers, contracts, court decrees, Divorce Decrees, records, and all parties involved as well as the court must understand hearing. Whether you need a translation for an official document, a legal contract, evidence document, financial statement, deposition, patent, litigation materials, letters, or other documents, our certified language translation professionals can complete it for you quickly and accurately
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POPSNow Is The Time To Buy Your Building If you are one of the lucky small businesses still doing well in this economy, you should give serious consideration to buying your own building. SBA interest rates have never been this low and will not last. Sellers are increasingly desperate to get rid of property. The opportunity is now.
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POPSCongress Must Pass Republican Leader Boehner’s Defund ACORN Act
or any other form of agreement to this criminal organization. ACORN ally Representative Jerrold Nadler has lead the charge against the Defund ACORN Act. He has claimed that it is an unconstitutional *" Bill of Attainder " an argument that has been thoroughly rebutted by former FEC Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky. Nadler had no such reservations when he co-sponsered legislation to punish AIG employees who had been awarded bonuses. *A legislative act pronouncing a person guilty of a crime, usually treason, without trial and subjecting that person to capital punishment and attainder. Such acts are prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. Congress moving to cut off funds to ACORN for the next 50 days is a merely a first step. An organization with ACORN’s history of voter registration fraud, tax evasion, and criminal activity should never again be eligible to receive any federal funds. Stopping payment to this criminal enterprise is not enough.
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POPSAny Way these Firms Can be Experts in Everything? What these government contractors are expert at is: 1. Placing job sites in states and districts of Congressional Members who serve on funding committee for Defense, IT, and Homeland Security. 2. Have Political Action Committees that donate money to candidates on same committees. 3. Having paid representatives at every meeting in Congress or government agency that could affect their funding.
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POPSStimulus jobs overstated by thousands I think we already knew this and it's interesting that the AP is actually investigating & reporting it. The WH plans to "fix" these errors. I wonder how they'll go about doing that. Does this mean that the university in Michigan (I think) will lose it's money to study volcanos in S. America?
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POPSPerhaps the Coolest iPhone App Yet If you have an iPhone 3GS or Android device you can install the Layar app for free and then search for "recovery" or "sunlight" within Layar to find this layer. The layer works best near large cities where you are most likely to find recovery contracts, below is an example of what it looks like on the streets of Washington DC. This data is taken from the recovery.gov Where Is The Money Going? map which provides a KML file containing all recipient reported Contracts. As of October 30th this data will be updated with the final contract, grants, and loans. How We Made It If you're a developer you might be interested in how we made this. Fortunately Layar makes it quite easy and we've taken a further step to make it even easier if you're already using Django. http://sunlightlabs.com/blog/2009/recoverygov-contracts-your-phone/
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POPSCan you hear me now???? I had a former employee call me earlier today inquiring about a job, and at the end of the conversation he gave me his phone number. I asked the former employee if this was a new cell phone number and he told me yes this was his “Obama phone.” I asked him what an “Obama phone” was and he went on to say that welfare recipients are now eligible to receive (1) a FREE new phone and (2) approx 70 minutes of FREE minutes every month. I was a little skeptical so I Googled it and low and behold he was telling the truth. TAX PAYER MONEY IS BEING REDISTRIBUTED TO WELFARE RECIPIENTS FOR FREE CELL PHONES. This program was started earlier this year. Enough is enough, the ship is sinking and it’s sinking fast. The very foundations that this country was built on are being shaken.. The age old concepts of God, family, and hard work have flown out the window and are being replaced with “Hope and Change” and “Change we can believe in.”
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POPSInvested In War n 2004, the first full year after the current Iraq war began, Republican and Democratic lawmakers-both hawks and doves invested between $74.9 million and 161.3 million in companies under contract with the DoD. No wonder the Democratic congress kept approving the enormous spending bills on the war, since a significant portion of it happens to end up in their deep pockets. Interestingly, the report also mentioned that members of the senate foreign relations and armed services committees which oversee the Iraq war had between $32 million and $44 million invested in companies with DoD contracts. The burning questions for many people are the following: Are there any ethics left in politics? Could the universe ever exist without wars? The answer is no, because wars have been a major part of our social make up, in addition they force geostrategic changes, make profits for the elite, and reduce population.
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