This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: “Your Tax Dollars At Work”

  • Just When You Think They Can’t Get ANY Stupider . . . .

    . . . you read something like this.

    Seven months after federal officials fired CGI Federal for its botched work on Obamacare website Healthcare.gov, the IRS awarded the same company a $4.5 million IT contract for its new Obamacare tax program.

    The Daily Caller today has an article with more details. It’s worthwhile – if depressing and infuriating – reading.

    It will be so damn nice to see the current      band of clueless idiots      DC clown krewe      Administration end. Maybe then we’ll see adult leadership again.

  • Navy Commander Pleads Guilty to Accepting Bribes

    Yesterday, CDR Jose Luis Sanchez pleaded guilty in Federal court to the crime of accepting bribes. He was the fifth individual and second member of the US Navy to plead guilty in connection with the Glenn Defense Marine Asia, Ltd. (AKA GDMA) scandal.  Prosecutors have alleged that this scandal was based on insider information and allowed GDMA to overbill the US Navy for support for years, costing Uncle Sam at least $20 million.

    Per this Fox News article,

    Sanchez admitted taking bribes valued between $30,000 and $120,000 from 2009 to 2013, including a prostitute, $7,500 to travel from Asia to the United States and five days at Singapore’s luxury Shangri-La Hotel, according to a 24-page plea agreement. In exchange, he provided classified Navy ship and submarine schedules and other internal information to Leonard Glenn Francis, chief executive of a Singapore-based company that provided services to vessels at ports.

    The other member of the USN to plead guilty so far – Petty Officer (precise rank not specified) Daniel Layug – also admitted to providing classified Navy shipping schedules to Francis.

    Francis – termed “Fat Leonard” by his confidants – was previously arrested (Sep 2013) on charges connected to the scandal. He has pleaded not guilty.

    Sanchez was arrested as part of the same bribery scandal for which CDR(P) Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz – who Jonn’s previously written about here at TAH – was arrested about 16 months ago. Misiewicz was arrested on charges related to his own separate dealings with Leonard.  After being arrested, Misiewicz pleaded not guilty charges of conspiracy to commit bribery.

    Sanchez’s guilty plea yesterday included a five-page addendum that remains under seal. Perhaps coincidentally, CDR Misiewicz was indicted yesterday on seven (7) additional counts related to the scandal.  It does not appear that he’s yet entered a plea regarding the new charges against him.

    Sanchez is facing a maximum of 20 years in Federal prison. He’s currently out on bail awaiting sentencing. He apparently needs his own assets to pay his lawyers, so he’s convinced his mother and sister to back his bail bond with their assets.

    Personally, I hope the courts absolutely body-slam every one of these guys damned hard when they’re convicted.  To wit:   a minimum of 5 or 7 years hard time for each, and preferably closer to the max sentences allowed under law.

    That particularly goes for any military or Federal civilian personnel involved.  These people were in positions of public trust; they betrayed that trust for a pittance. I think each needs at least 5 years – and preferably more – to reflect on both their sh!tbaggery and the pittance they received for selling-out Uncle Sam’s interests.

    Was it worth it, assholes? Was it?

    Don’t answer right away. You can give us your answer when you get out of prison – if you ever do.

    It’s OK by me if you die behind bars. But that’s not my call.

  • A Follow Up on that VA “Waiting List” Scandal

    Remember Sharon Helman, former VA employee? She was the director of the VA Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ, when the “secret waiting list” scandal broke.

    After a VA internal investigation, she was fired.  Recently her termination was upheld on appeal. But it probably wasn’t upheld for the reasons you might think.

    Helman was alleged to have engaged in three forms of misconduct: (1) being responsible for delayed veterans healthcare and falsified data regarding medical appointments; (2) retaliation against whistle-blowers; and (3) receiving improper (and unreported) gifts from a former boss-turned-lobbyist.

    As it turns out, only one of those allegations were deemed an acceptable reason for her termination.

    The first allegation – delayed patient care and falsified data – was not accepted by the Administrative Law Judge hearing her case. The judge ruled that the VA had not provided sufficient proof of Helman’s culpability regarding that allegation. And while the judge did find that proof of the second allegation (whistle-blower retaliation) to be sufficient, he also ruled that Helman’s misconduct was not serious enough to warrant being fired.

    However, the third allegation thankfully turned out differently. The judge ruled that at least nine of the twelve (!) allegations against Helman regarding improper acceptance of unreported gifts were fully substantiated. On these grounds, he allowed her termination from the civil service to stand.

    The Arizona Republic/AZ Central site has an article with more details. When I read the article, I found those details fairly disgusting – so if you just ate, maybe you want to wait a while before you read the article.

    Helman was a senior executive at the VA. I’m guessing she was neither the finest nor the worst at her level within the agency.

    With people like this in senior positions, is there any wonder why the VA has serious problems?

  • Sounds Kinda Like An “Enemies List” to Me

    A few years ago, a lady named Christine O’Donnell ran for the Senate in Delaware. She ran an, um, interesting campaign.

    She lost.

    One can argue whether or not she was a good candidate. I personally thought she was a poor candidate, ran at best a mediocre campaign, and that a better candidate could have won. But regardless, she managed to parlay that experience – and the publicity it generated – into a new gig. She now writes a column for the Washington Times Communities.

    Ms. O’Donnell is quite conservative. She was a Tea Party favorite when she ran for the Senate.

    However, for the past few years she’s been having a bit of trouble with a certain Federal agency. Let’s see – she’s conservative and writes a column for a conservative publication. Gee, what Federal agency do you think might be giving her a hard time?

    If you guessed the IRS, give yourself a pat on the back. Yeah, the same IRS that has been proven grossly biased against conservatives – giving conservative organizations filing for nonprofit status the “slow-roll” treatment, while expediting the processing of those who are politically liberal and/or well-connected.

    The IRS has now reportedly frozen Ms. O’Donnell’s bank accounts. In error. For the second time in the last 5 years. And the IRS also reportedly removed $30,000 from her accounts when it froze them – which has yet to be returned.

    If you or I pulled a stunt like that, it would probably be called “theft by deception”, fraud, or something similar,  We’d almost certainly be on the “hot seat” being grilled by Federal LEOs.

    But here, it’s the IRS doing it to a public figure of the opposite political philosophy than the current      DC clown krewe in charge      Administration.  So it’s seemingly A-OK.

    You know, I can’t help but contrast this incident to stuff I remember from years ago. When employees of a certain past former POTUS pulled similar stunts, it was called “dirty tricks” and an “enemies list”; the press raised hell about it. But today, for the current Administration it seems to be just “business as usual” – and the press doesn’t seem to give a damn.

    “Most transparent administration in history”? Well, maybe. If you’re talking most transparently willing to abuse the power of the Federal bureaucracy to retaliate against its political enemies, that is.

    And meanwhile from the press we hear . . . nada.  They seem unable to pull their thumbs out of their keisters and write anything

  • At Last – A Shovel-Ready Stimulus Project

    Remember that vaunted “economic stimulus” package from several years ago? You know, that one rammed through Congress by the      naive DC clown krewe      current Administration that was going to lassez les bontemps rouler again, economy-wise? And which hasn’t exactly worked out all that well?

    The 2009 economic stimulus program has been widely derided as ineffective. Many of those “shovel-ready” projects you heard about were anything but. Critics called many of the projects funded by the program “make work”, “pork”, or “crap”. And it looks like they were dead on target.

    However, in spite of the ineffectiveness of the program those stimulus funds apparently are still around (and we wonder why we’ve been having budget deficits approaching or over $1 trillion annually). And today we have a new stimulus-funded project that’s truly shovel-ready.

    It’s a contract issued by the Bureau of Land Management to haul off horse and burro manure.

    The contract has one base year and four option years. It will likely be in effect until 2019.

    I’m not joking.

    What a load of horsesh!t. Literally.

    And we’re the ones paying for it.

  • I Think Vets and Active Duty Personnel Will Just Love This Guy

    Metropolitan State University is in Denver, CO. It promotes itself as “a top choice for active-duty military and veterans to pursue higher education”.

    It also has one each Charles Angeletti as a professor. He teaches at least one class – American Civilization.

    Angeletti seems somewhat opinionated. Here are some of Angeletti’s thoughts on the USA:   “We’re very racist, we’re very repressive, we’re very Christian oriented, we don’t tolerate other kinds of thinking in this country.”

    As you might have guessed, Angeletti isn’t exactly conservative in his political leanings.  That’s reportedly apparent in the way he teaches his classes, too.

    Here’s a sample of how Angeletti teaches his American Civilization class. It’s something he reportedly has his students memorize and recite – his modified version of the Pledge of Allegiance.

    “I pledge allegiance to and wrap myself in the flag of the United States Against Anything Un-American. And to the Republicans for which it stands, two nations, under Jesus, rich against poor, with curtailed liberty and justice for all except blacks, homosexuals, women who want abortions, Communists, welfare queens, treehuggers, feminazis, illegal immigrants, children of illegal immigrants, and you, if you don’t watch your step.”

    (Apparently Angeletti also isn’t particularly bright either, notwithstanding the fact that he’s a college professor.  In particular, Angeletti apparently isn’t bright enough to figure out that if America really was as intolerant as he claims he’d not be allowed to spew his brand of idiocy in publicl.)

    I’m thinking that Angeletti’s moronic screed above – which is so poorly written that it isn’t even internally consistent regarding the point Angeletti’s attempting, abysmally badly, to make – is going to resonate with those active duty personnel and veterans that Metropolitan State University claims to want as students.  But I’m also thinking it won’t resonate in precisely the way that Dr. Ivory Tower Numbnuts here wants.

    Look, I’m all for academic freedom. But I do have a problem seeing public taxes pay someone to advocate blatantly false political propaganda as truth, and for teaching monumental idiocy.  And make no mistake about it:  if Metropolitan State students are getting any Pell grants or Federally guaranteed student loans – or are using VA benefits to attend the school – you and I are helping pay for this idiocy.

    Per the linked Fox News story, “Officials at Metropolitan State University of Denver did not immediately return requests for comment.”

  • Foreign-Born Civilian Navy Engineer . . . and Apparent Spy

    Seems that a foreign-born, 35-year-old engineer has been arrested by the FBI. The charge; attempting to provide design and vulnerability information concerning the Navy’s most advanced carrier currently under construction to a foreign government.

    It gets even better. The guy apparently immigrated and became a citizen fairly recently – he appears to have begun the process of attaining US citizenship in 2007. But it looks like he must have worked fast; he apparently was granted a security clearance fairly recently.

    Luckily, the “foreign agent” to whom the guy provided the info he’d obtained was an FBI undercover agent. So perhaps we dodged a proverbial bullet here.

    Unfortunately, the bastard isn’t facing the death penalty. He’s facing two charges, each of which have a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison. That’s . . . unfortunate. IMO, he should be looking at hanging – but I’d have settled for a needle instead.

    Both Fox News and the Washington Times have articles giving more details. They’re IMO worth reading.

    Interestingly, I’m not finding much else about this in the rest of the media. I wonder if the fact that the guy was born in Saudi Arabia – and was trying to provide the information to the government of Egypt – might have something to do with that?

    I guess spying on behalf of an Islamic nation must not be news. And that a recently-naturalized individual from a country with a huge Islamic extremist population applying for a security clearance during a time when we’re at war with Islamic extremists doesn’t merit enhanced scrutiny. Even if he’s from the country that, well, provided almost all of the terrorist bastards that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks.

    I swear, at times I think some folks working for the Five Sided Asylum really are crazy. Or perhaps simply have the intellect of a rock with lips.

  • Just When You Thought the Army’s Uniform Games Had Ended . . .

    . . . it turns out that’s not the case.

    According to the Army Times, the Army has announced that, because of adoption of the new Operational Camouflage Pattern, additional new uniform items will be required. Specifically, soldiers will need new boots, t-shirts, and belts to go with the new camouflage uniforms.

    Now, maybe new boots make sense; the desert tan boots used with the ACU were somewhat lighter than the new OCP.  The new boots are coyote brown.

    But new T-shirts and belts are just stupid, at least if they’re going to be mass-issued gratis.  What, has RIT quit making freaking dye?  And a new belt?  C’mon, folks – the belt isn’t even freaking visible.  The only time it’s seen is when you take off the jacket.  And if you’re taking off the jacket in combat, well, I think that means you’ve got worse problems than a mismatched belt.

    But I guess the DA part of the Five-Sided Asylum had to find something for some of its staff to work on.  This must have been really important.

    The Army Times article has more details.  It’s worth reading – unless you are having high blood pressure problems today.  Then maybe you might want to wait a while.

    One of those details:  the new OCP isn’t designed to be “universal”.   Jungle and desert variants will soon be announced.  I bet at least one of those will need “new boots, t-shirts, and belts” too.

    Sheesh.  GMAFB.