Tweet
I. Am. Pissed.
I am a veteran of the United States Air Force, serving from 12/76 to 9/82, reaching the rank of Staff Sergeant (E5). I have copies of my DD214 (Discharge papers) available if anyone wants to check.
So why am I telling y’all this?
In today’s (November 19, 2009) NY Times, there’s a story headlined:
Now it’s bad enough that we are creating more disabled veterans every day with the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and more homeless veterans everyday (both women and men).
No, that’s not enough. Now we have the crooks using programs that are supposed to help veterans, specifically disabled veterans, to rip off both the veterans and the taxpayers.
From the NY Times article:
A program intended to help disabled veterans win government business awarded at least $100 million in contracts to firms that were either ineligible or committed fraud to obtain the work, a federal review has found.
In one case, a Nevada firm won a $7.5 million contract from the Federal Emergency Management Agency even though its majority owner was not a disabled veteran, the review by the Government Accountability Office said.
People serve in the military for large varieties of reasons, simple patriotism to economic need and everything in between. We talk about supporting the troops. We talk about caring for those wounded in our service. Sometimes we even try, through our elected representatives and senators, to provide support for these folks who are injured while carrying out the policies of the folks in Washington. Yet we allow the crooks to come in and subvert programs of this nature without penalty (again from the article):
The accountability office recommended that Congress enact rules that punish firms that win contracts through fraud, whether through levying fines, suspending contracts or barring them from receiving future contracts.
Currently, no such penalties are in place, the report said. In one case cited, a company based in Nevada fraudulently described itself as owned by a disabled veteran so it could compete for contracts to maintain trailers for hurricane victims in Louisiana. Yet after the fraud was uncovered, the company was not required to repay $7.5 million it had received, and has not been prohibited from receiving future contracts.
We require the sacrifice of our soldiers. We should fully and completely punish the malefactors.
(Don’t even get me started on the crooks who pose as veterans).
And once again, because I can:
61 Comments
And yes, I am aware Johnny Cash has changed a line in the chorus from Prine’s original. I have them both and the song is still powerful, either way.
May I just say that I have the utmost respect for anyone who can distinguish between the Cash and Prine versions.
Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you market that skill.
Simple in this case. Cash omits the Jesus word that Prine used in the chorous.
“Theres a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes.
Jesus died for us all, I suppose.”
Or something like that.
Cash got hisself no Jeebus.
DK, great read, sickens me too.
I had more n a few years in nonprifit. Competing for state or fed dollar sponsored contracts is an artform unto itself, and often futile without direct connects to the money.
In the case you reveal, it goes beyond any non-profit lying and cheating.
A pox on the bastards and the companies should be cut off at the knees and barred for life from government work.
“Jesus died for nothin’, I suppose.”
Prine has a house a few blocks from me. His music gets played a lot on community radio. You’d be surprised how many songs you hear that were written by him but never recorded by him. Made his money as a songwriter.
One of the biggest and best hosses of such IMHO. *G*
Yer a lucky dude . . . tell John Larue loves his art.
Seen him, too, at a fest in the past 7 years, never thought I’d ever see him live.
*G*
I saw him in San Antonio about 3 years ago. It’s just real depressing that he’s had to break out all the songs like Sam Stone and Your Flag Decal… again.
FWIW, stating the obvious was not what I was suggesting was a marketable skill.
Hey, I thought you didn’t know about the word change itself, and that’s all my point was.
How am I to know yer a Prine fan and know his lyrics? *G*
There are millions who have never HEARD of Prine, perhaps only a few that never heard of Johnny Cash . . . lol
We kewl.
Earl of Old Town, 1971.
But I think Egregious probably has the best line of the night.
Yep, egr for the win.
Dunno about that, what about Sunday talk shows?
*SPEWS*
Damn, sure it’s cheap merlot, but it’s MERLOT dang it!!!
*G*
Thanks for lightening it up a tad . . *smiles*
Dakine – thank you for this post. I am a vet and outraged too.
Who do you recommend us putting pressure on to get the accountability in place. Vote Vets, IAVA?
Both of those organizations as well as Congress itself.
I find it unconscionable that Congress would pass the original legislation without any type of fraud penalties. At a minimum, it seems that anyone individual or firm associated with these frauds should be banned from receiving any type of federal contracts, much less on-going DoD or VA contracts.
And the banning should indeed suspend existing contracts as well as banning from future work. Too often, firms that commit fraud are allowed to maintain existing work with a limited ban on ‘future work’ in place for a short period, after which ‘all is forgiven’ and corruption continues apace.
Well, the guy who ran on lies tying Max Cleland to Saddam and bin Laden is still in the Senate, along with a lot of other Republicans who are there only to enrich their friends.
Looking at the FDL Book Salon page, I see that Max is coming to chat here a week from Saturday.
And I just love the title of his book: Heart of a Patriot: How I found the courage to survive Vietnam, Walter Reed, and Karl Rove.
Max has more courage than all the Rethugs put together. Rove should have one nano iota of the integrity.
He spoke at Stetson Law College, just down the street from me, at commencement this past summer.
bastards
Is anyone honest any more? What a country.
these people are traitors treat them that way to the full extent of the law.. ans make the penalties stiffer for fraud that that perpetrate!!
I am a vet and vets should be given more by our country we owe them~!
Our nation has become a place where humans are treated as plunder for moneyed power brokers.
sad but true, sad but true.
Thanks dakine01. Recommended.
And, great YouTube which I’d not watched. That just tells the story. Big Johnny Cash fan here, but wow!
Can I bore with you one of my OT JC favorites?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRlj5vjp3Ko
I do like the Man In Black. He was real.
heh
Vet. Me too. A Vietnam vet. 1968 thru 1971. I have been pissed at the government since my VVAW days. In America if there is a way to make money on war [before, during and after it] someone will find it, cash in on it and then go to church on Sunday to praise the God of capitalism.
The government of course will support the troops…once they have been discharged…only as much as they think they have to in order to stave off public protest. Not all government officials of course. Some are genuinely committed to honoring vets for their service.
But as you get closer and closer to the conservative end of the political spectrum the *small government* mentality does not make an exception for them. Only when they were on active duty did the *huge government* mentality apply.
Especially when the conservatives are chickhawks.
Excellent post, dakine01. If Congress gave a rat’s ass about vets there’d be no homeless vets or waiting six months for an appt at the VA. If Congress gave a rat’s ass about active duty military and National Guard personnel we wouldn’t be in Irak or Aghanistan. If Congress gave a rat’s ass about anything but getting re-elected and lining their pockets…
Valley Girl:
“I wear the black for the poor, the beaten down…“
I was hoping you’d get a chance to read this one. It just pisses me off to no end that a**holes build their rip-offs on the backs of the veterans.
How do they sleep at night?
Yet they have their enablers.
I’ve seen it before with guardians, both fiduciary and full, taking advantage of vets. Smaller scale but the same thing.
A few weeks ago we had a vet who has a fiduciary wanting to buy a house. The guardian is a real asshole. We reported him to the vet’s social worker at the VA. I’ll have to ask Jody how that turned out. I ran into one of the social workers I used to work with who’s now in a supervisory position and just happened to mention it to her. *g*
Amen (not that I’m religious but…) to all you said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/us/19fraud.html?_r=1&ref=us
Anybody have any idea how long the program lacked procedures to verify that applicant businesses are owned by disabled veterans? This smells like a Bush era change in which case Rummy is responsible.
Excellent post – thanks Dakine
Typical crony contracting move. There were hardly any vets in BushCheneyCo, so they didn’t have enough friends to fill out the program, thus gave the spoils to their non-vet friends.
It’s an outrage.
The reality is, (unfortunately) this type of action is not all that uncommon. When I was a support contractor within DoD, I know there were firms that were ostensibly Small/Disadvantaged (8a) firms that often had a figurehead but would then subcontract the work out to the inside the beltway bandits.
Again, as bad as that is, it’s doing it on the backs of the veterans that just takes it those steps beyond anything remotely legitimate (not that using the (8a) designation as a front is legitimate at all)
Yes the Swift Vote Vets didn’t get any contracts! Lying, Weasel, Vet, GOPers who Bush owes his second term to didn’t get on the Bush gravy train, Bush must really hate Vets!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/us/19fraud.html?ref=us
Screwing Katrina victims that required Bush WH clout to get in on that gravy trail.
(Uh, that’s the first link in the diary – linked via the headline)
Dakine01: thank you for your years of service. my dad was retired from the service as well-Navy from ’38-’50 and the Army from ’50-’60. the closest i came was designing a Navy newspaper (The Dolphin) for the New London Subase, for a few years in the ’80s. i have nothing but the utmost respect for everyone in the service. i’m so sorry about this pathetic crap that prompted you to write. i’ll write my congressperson and senators tonight.
In the town I grew up in you get arrested drugs, burglary etc you get your name in the newspaper before you are convicted! I am noticing that corporate crime seems to get more rights to privacy before conviction that people do?
Are corporations more equal than others? Or as Orwell’s Animal Farm might put it ” two legs Bad” Corporations good.
You can’t have any Deterrent value to crime unless you punish Corporations like you would people. If I steal 100 bucks as a McDonalds Cashier I’m out of a job before I’m found guilty in a court of law.
Today we let CEO’s and board of Director’s stay on after fraud happens they should be suspended from their jobs until cleared.
They do have more cash to survive a layoff than a McDonalds cashier they will be fine.
Thanks to the banks reregulating business would be popular why its deregulation which caused the bank bailout.
more rot, more corruption, more craven venality. I don’t really know what to say anymore. Perhaps we need to bring back the 19th century Russian concept of internal exile for these disgraced politicos and bureaucrats. All of their worldly possessions are confiscated upon conviction and then they are sent with their families to live on a shack on an island somewhere. I’m sure we could spare one of the Aleutians for this purpose, and a few predator drones to make sure they stay there.
Dakine01 at 27 sorry reply isn’t working for me what seems to be wrong with my comment?
He’s saying that the 1st quote (the NYT headline) is a link to the NYT piece you linked to.
Oh I thought I had linked the wrong article or something.
Nah, you were just emphasizing the article.
There’s a protocol, methinks, involved here.
Author of post links to a source. Quotes from it twice, everyone knows in this case NYT and THAT article is the base story involved.
A commenter comes along, quotes something from source and links source article, tends to break the protocol.
What’s the protocol?
Simple.
“Here’s another significant quote from the link DK provided us all.”
Courtesy of attribution, respect for the author of the post, and honors a basic protocol.
That’s my take on it.
Just a gentle HatTip required, when quoting the same source the author of the post linked, when commenting.
Course, I’ve had PR, Journ, and Com Studies writing classes and protocols experiences galore, and I’m kinda sensitive to these things . . . no disrespect to TCU . . . . just a gentle suggestion of a protocol he might not have been aware of.
I think he may have missed the attribution and the link first time round. No harm, no foul.
I don’t know if he missed it, I just thought I’d explain it just in case, and for general edification.
And of course, no harm, no fouls, of any sorts . . *G*
I just don’t tend to never assume nuttin . . . . spell it out, make it clear, everyone understands . . .
It’s like prepping for worst case and hoping for best case.
Spell it out. *G*
Drives some folks nuts.
LOL
Well, you also had a paragraph from the original story that I had in the diary as well.
I guess the Department of Redundancy Department was operating here is all.
Apparently the author is a victim of historical memory loss..in 1969 we understood that Veteran was just another word for a Soldier who has outlived his(sic) usefulness.
The government will not put in fraud penalties because the federal governments workers are at fault so many times. Many are there just to get paid, for the job will cushy benefits and an early retirement. They have no reason to go out of their way to dig deeper on things to make sure everything is done right. Hell Bernie Madoffs schemes were told to all different agencies repeatedly but it was too much work or nobody cared to investigate it. This Fort Hood Hasan character was known about and many signs were there through all different intelligence agencies and nobody did nothing. I believe that volunteers need to take the lead on this private charities can help for less cost and better results because the passion to help is there not just an assignment.
Way to insult a group of people about whom you know absolutely nothing. Most all the people I worked with in federal service were as dedicated or more so than their corporate counterparts and were paid a hell of a lot less.
Of course, if all those agencies told about Madoff had actually responded, do you think BushCo would have actually done anything? It takes staff to conduct an investigation, knowledgeable staff. Staff that BushCo appointees did not want around as they drove many of them out of the government.
You do remember that little bit of information don’t you? That Bush was in office? With his political appointees based on ideological purity rather than any actual competence?
Past time for me to leap into my tree.
Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.
Namaste
Who do we think will provoke more outrage from the Reich Wingers: ACORN or these crooks?
When this site talks about supporting the troops, it is a laughable fucking joke. The left sees soldiers as political props and nothing more. A far left site that genuinely supports the military rather than holding it in contempt is about as real as a leprechaun riding a unicorn.
I know it may come as a big shock to you, but there are in fact many veterans who comment here and consider themselves progressives/liberals. Who served our country in both peace and war and actually believe in the idea that active duty military and veterans should be treated as humans.
For you to come in here and accuse “the left” of seeing troops as only political props is beyond laughable. What did you think Commander Codpiece was doing on the Lincoln with the Mission Accomplished banner? Or carrying around a fake turkey at Thanksgiving?
But then, I’ve seen enough of your comments to consider the source. Look into your own heart on how you treat veterans.
Vet. 1971-1975.
Who needs Nigerian princes when we have our own scam artists up in Washington, on Wall Street, in all the state capitals and on C Street.
The first sign of a scam being contemplated (or enacted), especially where huge amounts of taxpayer money is involved, appears in lax or non-existent enforcement of (or punishment for) those planning on bilking us all. Another sign is someone, in government, pushing to deregulate the regulations, cut the number of inspectors, block investigations into any criminal complaints that do arise, you know, covering for the Nigerian prince scammers both before and after the fact.
We saw plenty of this during the Bush/Cheney years, especially when the Republicans controlled Congress, but with Washington being Washington and with all those Nigerian princes on Wall Street, running scam after scam after scam, often with the help of paid-off politicians, who relax or eliminate the enforcement and punishment portions of any bill, we have seen some of this same lawless, greed-driven mentality carried over into the new Obama administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress (with Blue Dog Democrats being the worst offenders, running interference for their corporate Nigerian prince benefactors).
There are few veterans of foreign wars in the three branches of our federal government today, whether in the White House, Congress or even on the Supreme Court. Mainly, the veterans of foreign wars, who populated and policed the corridors of our federal government in the decades following World War II and the Korean War, who did so much to expand the opportunities and living standards of all American citizens, have been replaced by veterans of Wall Street, many of whom are beholden to the Nigerian princes on Wall Street, not to our country, not to our Constitution, not to the working class or struggling American families, not to our veterans, not even our active duty military personnel.
Private contractors is the new Cash Cow in Washington, the new Nigerian prince scheme, private contractors out to make as much profit as possible off the public dime. No-bid contracts. Cronyism. Often with no oversight, no follow-up, no enforcement, no punishment. Bush’s Iraq War. Afghanistan. Hurricane Katrina. Telecom companies secretly spying on U.S. citizens without a warrant (and then given retroactive immunity). Healthcare system.
We don’t have to go overseas to find any scam-artist Nigerian princes. They are among us. Plotting and scheming. Money is their God. “To hell with America” is their unspoken motto. Service to our nation is the last thing on their minds. The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights are “quaint.” The rule of law is a joke, to be circumvented or “rigged,” at every possible chance. These domestic Nigerian princes choke on the Pledge of Allegiance, or have a hard time keeping a straight face while saying it, knowing full well that Money is their God, and the well-being and prosperity of all the citizens in our country, young/old, male/female, straight/gay, vet/non-vet, healthy/ailing, religious/non-religious, of whatever color, comes in a distant last.
For America (and all Americans) to win, all these domestic Nigerian princes must lose (or at least have their wings clipped). We’ve seen this pattern repeated throughout history. Economic aristocracies. Political aristocracies. Religious aristocracies. Constant scams. The rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer. Banana Republics and Banana Republicans. Increased inequality, both in rights and in the marketplace. “Justice” being bought, but only by those who can afford it. We’ve all seen this before. Are we seeing a repeat of this same society-destroying pattern in America today?
Can we sink any lower? “Yes We Can”….this is disgusting.
Congress doesn’t usually include civil penalties in legislation. That language is already in the laws relating more generally to government contracting. It’s a;so in the Federal Acquisition Regulations, and in the boiler plate language in each contract.
The issue is enforcement.
For these types of frauds there should be criminal penalties IMNSVHO