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| Home Front: Politix |
| INTIMIDATION: Obama, Holder DOJ Goes After Gallup Poll |
| 2012-08-23 |
| Justice Department officials joined a whistle blower lawsuit and alleged that The Gallup Organization, a major polling firm, intentionally overestimated the amount of time it would take to complete a job for the government and was paid accordingly. "Contractors who do business with the federal government must honor their obligations to provide honest services and products," said U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr. in a statement on the lawsuit. "Working with regulators and federal investigators, we will do all that we can to act against those who illegitimately bill the American taxpayers." Gallup, known as one of the premier polling firms with respect to presidential politics, had contracts to conduct surveys for the U.S. Mint and the State Department in addition to other government agencies. "According to the whistle-blower's complaint, Gallup violated the False Claims Act by giving the government inflated estimates of the number of hours that it would take to perform its services, even though it had separate and lower internal estimates of the number of hours that would be required," the Justice Department explained. "The complaint further alleges that the government paid Gallup based on the inflated estimates, rather than Gallup's lower internal estimates." The latest Gallup daily tracking figures show Mitt Romney leading President Obama 47-45. |
| Posted by:Ulomp Chuse5919 |
| #14 Does Gallup do political polling? Maybe Bambi is looking for one that favors him. "Nice little polling outfit ya' got there - be a shame if something happened to it...." |
| Posted by: Barbara 2012-08-23 16:33 |
| #13 Bobby, you sound like a hospital which relies on MC payments. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2012-08-23 12:37 |
| #12 Telecommuting is the way to go. With jobs like mine I don't need to be here 90% of the time. I can do it all online from any place that has an Internet connection. I ask them about it but they won't let me. They'd rather I waste a couple of hours every day commuting the old fashioned way. Not to mention all the money spent on petroleum products and the pollution. Nuts. But with Obama and Holder, the DOJ is nothing more than a political weapon. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2012-08-23 11:32 |
| #11 Chicago is after all the home of Al Capone. Rahm Emanuel reportedly threatened to send a dead fish some one who ticked him off. Another time it has been said he plunged a knife in a tabletop for er, punctuation. Gangster Government (2011) by David Freddoso documents some of the more egregious shenanigans in Chicago while Obama was earning his bones. Of course much has happened since 2011. Maybe there will be a sequel documenting the other stuff since then. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2012-08-23 11:04 |
| #10 Some of you folks don't seem to understand how Chicago Crony Capitalism works. Posted by: Nimble Spemble Instructive primer. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2012-08-23 10:55 |
| #9 Some of us work 10+ hour work days 7 days a week. But we didn't build it ourselves. Uncle Sugar was there helping me at the keyboard every step of the way, and he left me with a good minority of the business earnings! So generous. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-08-23 10:51 |
| #8 Some of you folks don't seem to understand how Chicago Crony Capitalism works. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2012-08-23 08:47 |
| #7 I recommend gummit oversight funded by.... Poll Taxes. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2012-08-23 08:41 |
| #6 "According to the whistle-blower's complaint, Gallup violated the False Claims Act by giving the government inflated estimates of the number of hours that it would take to perform its services, even though it had separate and lower internal estimates of the number of hours that would be required," the Justice Department explained. "The complaint further alleges that the government paid Gallup based on the inflated estimates, rather than Gallup's lower internal estimates." "Not to exceed" contracts are commonplace. No fool except the Fed fool, I guess, pays the estimate without backup, unless it was an agreed "lump sum price". In which case there's no crime here. It is intimidation |
| Posted by: Frank G 2012-08-23 08:23 |
| #5 The other thing about estimates (first hand experience here) is that you have to figure in the gov't. propensity for scope creep. You give an estimate for X costing $Y because you know that X will be X+5 by the time things are actually done. BTW this is not unknown in the private (also known as the real) world either. |
| Posted by: AlanC 2012-08-23 08:23 |
| #4 Pole changed to Poll. Relators changed to regulators. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2012-08-23 08:16 |
| #3 It's quite common, in my experience, for contractors to puff up their estimates with the expectation the govt will have to cut 20-30% so the contractor doesn't make "too much profit". Besides, it's too much work to really look into and understand the contractor's estimate... Sounds like some governemnt drone was too lazy to even wack the 'customary 25%', so now the contractor will be punished! |
| Posted by: Bobby 2012-08-23 06:01 |
| #2 we will do all that we can to act against those who illegitimately bill the American taxpayers." "Illegitimate" ...... Yes, yes, I think I've spotted some. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2012-08-23 04:41 |
| #1 Te Obama regime should ABSOLUTELY beat this polling organization bloody - and teach them who is REALLY the boss. Meanwhile, it's time for me to go buy some more popcorn - I want to really enjoy watching this spectacle unfold. |
| Posted by: Lone Ranger 2012-08-23 01:58 |