On April 26th, President Barack Obama established a Small Business Task Force to supposedly remove barriers to small businesses landing contracts with the federal government. I had to laugh out loud. This was amusing to me for many reasons, but most notably, President Obama ignored the recommendations of his last small business task force. It was established during his presidential campaign, and I was on it.
We spent months coming up with solid and practical solutions to help small businesses. He never adopted a single one of our recommendations. It turned out to be the first of many Obama, “all talk and no action,” programs for small businesses.
In my humble opinion, the number one barrier to small businesses landing more federal contracts is President Obama himself. All you need to do is take a quick look at President Obama’s actual track record for small businesses to predict what the recommendations of his small business task force will be.
Since 2003, a series of federal investigations have found that most federal small business contracts actually go to Fortune 500 firms. Report 5-15 from the Small Business Administration (SBA) Inspector General referred to the rampant fraud and abuse as, “One of the most important challenges facing the Small Business Administration and the entire Federal government today…” (http://www.asbl.com/documents/05-15.pdf) The SBA IG has reported this as the number one management challenge facing the SBA for the last five consecutive years.
The latest data released by the Obama Administration clearly, and undeniably, shows the largest recipient of federal small business contracts last year was Textron, Inc., a Fortune 500 firm with over 43,000 employees and over $14 billion a year in annual revenue. Other firms that received U.S. government small business contracts included, Lockheed Martin, Dell Computer, Xerox, General Dynamics, ManTech, Raytheon, Boeing, Office Depot and General Electric.
President Obama was clearly aware of this issue in February of 2008, when he released the statement, “It is time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.” (http://www.barackobama.com/2008/02/26/the_american_small_business_le.php) To date, he has consistently refused to adopt any polices to keep his campaign promise and end the daily flow of over $400 million a day in federal small business contracts to corporate giants.
It gets worse. On March 12th of this year the Obama Administration removed, and potentially permanently destroyed ten-years worth of data that had been used by federal investigators to uncover billions of dollars in fraud and abuse in federal small business contracting programs. Obama officials removed the “small business flag,” field, in which Fortune 500 firms have illegally misrepresented themselves as small businesses for years. Report 5-16 from the SBA IG referred to these misrepresentations as, “false certifications” and “improper certifications.” Other federal investigations described the blatant fraud as “vendor deception.” Now all evidence of the abuses has been removed.
Omar Torres, AFP/Getty Images- Mexican immigrants carrying bottles of water attempt to cross the Mexico-U.S. border illegally from Sasabe, in the state of Sonora into the Arizona desert in the United States, April 2006.
Judge Blocks Parts Of Ariz. Immigration Law
Law Will Still Take Effect Thursday But Without Many Controversial Provisions
PHOENIX — A judge has blocked the most controversial sections of Arizona’s new immigration law from taking effect Thursday, handing a major legal victory to opponents of the crackdown.
The law will still take effect Thursday, but without many of the provisions that angered opponents – including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws. The judge also put on hold a part of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton put those controversial sections on hold until the courts resolve the issues.
Opponents say the law will lead to racial profiling and is trumped by federal immigration law.
NEW ORLEANS – (AP) Oil is spewing from a damaged well north of a bay where officials have been fighting the spill from the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Coast Guard says a tow boat called Pere Ana C. hit the wellhead near Mud Lake early Tuesday. No injuries were reported.
The Coast Guard did not know who owns the small well or how much oil has leaked. But a sheen has been spotted in the lake. Jefferson Parish Councilman Chris Roberts says oil is spewing from the wellhead.
Coast Guard Lt. Brian Sattler says a helicopter has been dispatched to survey the area, which is accessible only by boat.
Mud Lake is part of a network of bayous and lakes north of Barataria Bay, an ecologically sensitive coastal estuary where authorities have been fighting waves of oil from the Gulf spill.
US industrial titan General Electric has agreed to pay over 23 million dollars to settle allegations that it bribed Iraqi officials, a US financial watchdog said on Tuesday.
GE had been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of being part of “a 3.6 million dollar kickback scheme with Iraqi government agencies to win contracts to supply medical equipment and water purification equipment.”
Four subsidiaries of the Connecticut-based company were accused of bribing officials at the Iraqi ministries of health and oil, trading cash, computer equipment and medical supplies to win lucrative contracts.
The SEC said the four GE units — two of which were not part of the firm when the alleged bribery took place — earned around 18.4 million dollars as a direct result of the kickbacks.
“Bribes and kickbacks are bad business, period,” said Robert Khuzami, the head of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement.
What nonsense. Obama’s war puts the lives of American soldiers at risk, and the craven puppet state behavior of “our partners” in serving as US mercenaries is what puts their troops at risk.
Keep in mind that it was someone in the US military that leaked the documents to WikiLeaks. This means that there is a spark of rebellion within the Empire itself.
And rightly so. The leaked documents show that the US has committed numerous war crimes and that the US government and military have lied through their teeth in order to cover up the failure of their policies. These are the revelations that Washington wants to keep secret.
On September 11, 2001, America froze in shock and the shock was followed by a mix of fear, anger and bewilderment.
Yet for some, the first response was also the enduring response: a knowing dread that what followed would be far worse than what just happened; that America’s reaction would be wildly disproportionate and vastly more destructive than the events of that day.
Some of us had the luxury of holding that dispassionate wide-angle perspective from the comfort of distance — I lived on the West Coast at that time. But there were others who saw what was coming even while still breathing the dust from the collapsed Twin Towers. Tom Engelhardt was such an observer and has been chronicling the 9/11 fallout ever since.
The war logs reveal civilian killings by coalition forces, secret efforts to eliminate Taliban and al-Qaida leaders, and discuss the involvement of Iran and Pakistan in supporting insurgents. Photograph: Max Whittaker/CorbisA huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.
The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers’ website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel, give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops.
There’s nothing shocking or surprising about the latest Andrew Breitbart scam in which he released selectively-edited video of an African American USDA worker, Shirley Sherrod, and accused her of racism against a white farmer couple, the Spooners. That’s not to suggest we shouldn’t be vigorously talking about it. We absolutely should be. But the most outrageous aspects of the story are fairly typical of everyone involved: Breitbart, the so-called “liberal” news media, Democrats, Fox News Channel and all points in between.
For background purposes, it’s important to note that Andrew Breitbart is an attention-whore who is desperate to emulate his mentor, Matt Drudge, and this isn’t the first time he’s released misleading videotape “evidence” of African Americans behaving badly (or so he claims) in order to drive traffic to his various websites while augmenting his status as a player in the modern conservative movement. He previously engaged in the same chicanery when he released heavily edited and ultimately phony Jackass-style videos in which, he alleges, ACORN workers had given inappropriate advice to a (fake) pimp and a (fake) prostitute who were, among other things, seeking to engage in human trafficking. The videos turned out to be misleading at best, and the fake pimp character went on to plead guilty to charges of entering federal property under false pretense.
Breitbart scammed nearly everyone on the ACORN videos including people who should have known better, like, for example, Jon Stewart.
Breitbart has done it again. This time, he’s flimflammed the White House, the NAACP and the traditional news media.
None of this is a particularly big shocker, of course. This is what Breitbart does. He’s another Karl Rove type in that his entire modus operandi is to tangle the debate — to be an instigator. To kerfuffle everyone he engages until the discourse has become so confused, skewed and tangential that he’s able to walk away more or less unscathed while the targets of his regularly scheduled crusades are often damaged beyond repair. ACORN is a national pariah. And this week, a decent woman is out of a job.
Huffington Post | Bianca Bosker First Posted: 07-19-10 09:44 AM | Updated: 07-20-10 10:37 AM
UPDATE: In a press release, BurstNet has provided new information that sheds light on why the company shut down over 70,000 blogs hosted by Blogetery, a blogging platform.
“It was revealed that a link to terrorist material, including bomb-making instructions and an al-Qaeda ‘hit list’, had been posted to the site,” BurstNet explained.
In a previous email exchange, a BurstNet representative had said that “law enforcement officials” requested that Blogetery, and, by extension, the blogs it hosted, be shuttered. However, it has since become clear that BurstNet shut down the Blogetery of its own accord after finding material that violated its policies.
“Upon review, BurstNet determined that the posted material, in addition to potentially inciting dangerous activities, specifically violated the BurstNet Acceptable Use Policy,” the company wrote in a statement. “This policy strictly prohibits the posting of ‘terrorist propaganda, racist material, or bomb/weapon instructions’. Due to this violation and the fact that the site had a history of previous abuse, BurstNet elected to immediately disable the system.”
CNET explains BurstNet CTO Joe Marr “said a Burst.net employee erred in telling Blogetery’s operator and members of the media that the FBI had ordered it to terminate Blogetery’s service. He said Burst.net did that on its own.”
–
Late last week, the Associated Press reported that “dozens of blogs by some of China’s most outspoken users” had been “abruptly” closed in China, notorious for its strict Internet controls.
But less attention has been given to another blog blackout–this time in the US: As CNET reports, some 73,000 blogs hosted by WordPress blogging platform Blogetery.com, were shut down last week by BurstNet , Blogetery’s web hosting company.
According to CNET “nobody seems willing to say why or who is responsible.” What is known is that BurstNet informed Blogetery’s operator, via email, that the its service had been terminated “by request of law enforcement officials, due to material hosted on the server.”
Joe has been banned from Youtube time and again, but he’s back for awhile, I hope. Seem’s that every time he talks about the Zionist agenda he is in trouble with Youtube, but this isn’t the first return of Joe, and he is back with a vengeance that is well understood by his followers. Joe is not a quitter, neither is he making this stuff up. All of his commentaries are well researched and stand up under scrutiny, much to the chagrin of the current leaders of Israel and the U$.
You t t t tellum, Joe, I st st st stutter utter utter…G:
PHOENIX — Minutemen groups, a surge in Border Patrol agents, and a tough new immigration law aren’t enough for a reputed neo-Nazi who’s now leading a militia in the Arizona desert.
Jason “J.T.” Ready is taking matters into his own hands, declaring war on “narco-terrorists” and keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants. So far, he says his patrols have only found a few border crossers who were given water and handed over to the Border Patrol. Once, they also found a decaying body in a wash, and alerted authorities.
But local law enforcement are nervous given that Ready’s group is heavily armed and identifies with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn’t white should leave the country “peacefully or by force.”
“We’re not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore,” Ready said. “This is what our founding fathers did.”
An escalation of civilian border watches have taken root in Arizona in recent years, including the Minutemen movement. Various groups patrol the desert on foot, horseback and in airplanes and report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol, and generally, they have not caused problems for law enforcement.
But Ready, a 37-year-old ex-Marine, is different. He and his friends are outfitted with military fatigues, body armor and gas masks, and carry assault rifles. Ready takes offense at the term “neo-Nazi,” but admits he identifies with the National Socialist Movement.
“These are explicit Nazis,” said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project. “These are people who wear swastikas on their sleeves.”
Ready is a reflection of the anger over illegal immigration in Arizona. Gov. Jan Brewer signed a controversial new immigration law in April, which requires police, while enforcing other laws, to question a person’s immigration status if officers have a reasonable suspicion that the person is in the country illegally.
But Brewer hasn’t done enough, Ready said, and he’s not satisfied with President Barack Obama’s decision to beef up security at the border.
Speaking today at a reception for her Israeli counterpart, US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice vowed that the United States would remain eternally committed to ensuring Israel’s regional military superiority and promised that they would continue to shield Israel from diplomatic fallout for its behavior at the United Nations.
If you are curious about why the large majority of our senators and congressmen signed on to a, AIPAC sponsered, letter to the Illustrious secretary of state Hillary Clinton, you have no further to look than AIPAC’s web site where they have blatantly published a copy of the letter for the perusal of the sheeple.
Assistant Secretary for Political – Military Affairs, Andrew Shapiro, discusses the Obama Administration’s approach to U.S.-Israel security cooperation , including ongoing efforts to strengthen theU.S.-Israel security relationship , at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington, DC July 16, 2010.
The Obama Administration is proud to carry on the legacy of robust U.S. security assistance for Israel. Indeed, we are carrying this legacy to new heights at a time when Israel needs our support to address the multifaceted threats it faces.
To wit:
“For Fiscal Year 2010, the Administration requested $2.775 billion in security assistance funding specifically for Israel, the largest such request in U.S. history. Congress fully funded our request for FY 2010, and we have requested even more – $3.0 billion – for FY 2011. These requests fulfill the Administration’s commitment to implementing the 2007 memorandum of understanding with Israel to provide $30 billion in security assistance over 10 years.”
Rep. Charles Rangel is again calling for a military draft to highlight the fact that relatively few families are bearing a disproportionate burden in fighting the nation’s wars.
The New York Democrat introduced a bill Thursday to reinstate the draft, a symbolic gesture that has no chance of becoming law. Rangel previously introduced similar legislation in 2003 and 2007.
Rangel said lawmakers who support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should require “all who enjoy the benefits of our democracy to contribute to the defense of the country.”
Rangel said he supports President Barack Obama’s efforts to eventually bring troops home, but he wants it to happen faster.
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The war logs reveal civilian killings by coalition forces, secret efforts to eliminate Taliban and al-Qaida leaders, and discuss the involvement of Iran and Pakistan in supporting insurgents. Photograph: Max Whittaker/CorbisA 
Via: Huff Post
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