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Thousands Throng Istanbul Protest Square
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Page 6: Politix
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Page 4: Opinion
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Former congresswoman rakes in $450K from federally funded laboratories
[The Daily Caller]
News from the DoE and National Lab cesspools.
Former New Mexico Republican Rep. Heather Wilson received nearly half a million dollars in “questionable” payments from four federally funded nuclear laboratories after leaving office, according to the Department of Energy’s inspector general.

“In fact, our testing revealed that the four facility contractors paid approximately $450,000 to [Heather Wilson and Company, LLC] even though they did not receive evidence that work performed under the agreements had been completed,” reads the IG’s report. “These payments were fully reimbursed by the government.”

According to the inspector general’s report, Wilson failed to provide documentation for work she did for Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories, for which she was paid $20,000 per month. Both the labs seem to have asked Wilson to secure them more work, which is in violation of Wilson’s contract, according to the report.
"Failing to provide documentation" is generally defined as not being able to produce specific contract deliverables assigned, specific worked performed, or time card entries.
Wilson received 23 payments totaling $226,378 from Sandia between January 2009 and March 2011, and 19 payments from Los Alamos totaling $195,718 between August 2009 and February 2011.

Wilson also received $30,000 from the Nevada Test Site and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Officials there even told investigators that there “were no deliverables” associated with the $30,000 Wilson received.
Oh there were deliverables, but they were not contained in any formal statement of work [SOW].
The contractors have since paid back $442,877 out of the $464,203 that was paid to Wilson.
Which by any other standard, is tantamount to an admission of wrong doing.
Under federal law, “fees for services rendered are allowable only when supported by evidence of the nature and scope of the service furnished” — so Wilson has to prove she did the work.

Wilson told the Associated Press that the report “confirms that the labs were satisfied with my work. The work was done in full compliance with the contracts we signed and under the direct supervision of lab sponsors.”

The report called Wilson’s agreements with the labs unusual and, in some cases, “highly irregular.” And it said the agreements and the lab operators failed to include or enforce “even minimum” invoicing standards required under federal regulations.

“Her relationship with our national labs goes back over 20 years and she has worked on a wide range of projects with different groups of scientists and engineers over time,” Wilson’s Senate campaign told the AP last year. Wilson was defeated by Democrat Martin Heinrich, who highlighted her cozy relationship with the laboratories.

Los Alamos told the AP in a statement that it “was reasonable and appropriate” to ask for Wilson’s help, arguing she was “uniquely qualified to advise the lab on a variety of issues related to our national security missions.”

“[W]e acknowledge we did not document her services consistent with our own expectations for subcontract management,” Los Alamos added.
And the Federal Employee serving as the Contracting Officers Representative charged with oversight of the Federal Acquisition Regulation [FAR] was whom?
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/12/2013 17:25 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "questionable" "unusual and, in some cases, “highly irregular.”"

Does it say illegal?
Did she fail to report the income on her tax returns?

Democrat Martin Heinrich, who highlighted her cozy relationship with the laboratories.

In the last days of the campaign, he hammered her on voting for the Bailout while never mentioning that it was done in a Congress controlled by Reid (D-NV) and Pelosi (D-CA), the latter of whom he had voted consistently with during his term as Representative. He would have done what Nancy told him to.

Two of the Laboratories, Los Alamos and Sandia, have big economic impacts on the state. Both are contracted operations supervised by DoE but operated by universities. She and every representative sent to Congress work to keep the places working. If lobbying is illegal, it well past time to be applied to the all denizens and former government officials of K Street in total.


Can you say Squirrel
Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/12/2013 19:24 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Joe Biden: Al Gore ‘was elected president’
Posted by: Skidmark || 06/12/2013 15:51 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  NO he wasn't.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/12/2013 19:26 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
MSNBC: George Wallace a . . . Republican?

Well, you learn something new every day, as they say. Today’s lesson? Governor George Wallace, the segregationist who served three nonconsecutive terms as Alabama’s chief executive, was a Republican.

At least, so says MSNBC. Noting the 50-year anniversary of Wallace’s infamous “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door,” in which the governor physically blocked two black students from entering the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes showed a photo of Wallace — identifiying him as “(R) Alabama.”
Posted by: Beavis || 06/12/2013 14:52 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, everybody knows that the R stands for Racist, right? Or Republican - same difference.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 06/12/2013 22:49 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Obama-knows-best goes bust
[POLITICO]
Posted by: Fred || 06/12/2013 12:18 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Nonsensical Markey: It's Not Math, It's Arithmetic
Posted by: Beavis || 06/12/2013 09:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  About the level of intellectual contribution one might expect from this sort.
Posted by: Iblis || 06/12/2013 13:49 Comments || Top||

#2  What these chumps don't understand is that arithmetic always wins in the end, no matter how much you play fast and loose with the budget numbers. See Detroit for a preview.
Posted by: SteveS || 06/12/2013 15:20 Comments || Top||

#3  If one defines math as calculus and the topology of irregular multidimensional surfaces and the kind of higher things our Eric Jablow used to play with, versus the arithmetic that bookkeepers do, he's absolutely right. But that's not how the term is used colloquially.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/12/2013 21:33 Comments || Top||

#4  That's right, TW. Being able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide is hardly what I used to do. Granted, I ended up not being particularly good at moduli theory of Riemann Surfaces, but there is a difference. Publish or Perish—I Perished.

Not that all mathematics must be difficult to understand. "Show that if 6 people are at a party, either 3 are mutual acquaintances to each other, or 3 are mutual strangers to each other." can be taught to a 6-year-old in five minutes, but that's mathematics and not arithmetic.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 06/12/2013 22:59 Comments || Top||

#5  Being good at an academic thing and being good at getting published are intersecting sets, Eric. Unfortunately, nowadays only one set gets tenure in our leading institutions. On the other hand, the cross-fertilization of the first set with the outside world has only benefitted the outside world, so I'm glad you found a place to land.
Posted by: trailing wife || 06/12/2013 23:36 Comments || Top||

#6  First glance, looks like Bill Murray inbred with Joe Biden.

Posted by: USN, Ret. || 06/12/2013 23:37 Comments || Top||

#7  The reason I distinguish between arithmetic and math is because I had a lot of trouble explaining to people what I did. And of course, too many people told me with pride that, "Math was my worst subject."
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 06/12/2013 23:42 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
House members remain concerned after FBI/NSA briefing on PRISM - HotAir
Members of Congress yesterday expressed growing doubts about the way the country's previously top-secret surveillance programs are mis managed, even as the top legislators from each party voiced confidence in the programs and showed little interest in a public discussion of the issue.
"Growing doubts" but no interest in flipping over the rocks ?
Emerging from an early evening closed-door briefing with officials from the National Security Agency, the Justice Department and the FBI, some members of the House of Representatives said they had more questions than answers about the surveillance programs that sweep up records from phone and Internet accounts belonging to millions of Americans.

"I think what really came out of it is that we need, as Congress, is to move forward and debate the issue," said Rep. C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee. "It's really a debate on how far we go with public safety, and protecting us from terrorist attacks, versus how far we go on the other side and what programs we use to deal with that issue. This is what we do in Congress."
Any mention or concern for constitutional legality ?
Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said there "obviously" needs to be more congressional oversight on the telephone surveillance program, under which so-called metadata from cellphone records are surrendered to the FBI and the NSA on a daily basis.

"I did not know a billion records a day were coming under control of the executive branch," Sherman said.
A billion records a day? What kind of records would those be? It doesn't sound like that's just metadata from Verizon, which is big but not that big.
"What kind of records"....short answer, ALL records, just ask a very nervous Google.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/12/2013 08:52 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We have top men working on it right now. Yep.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 06/12/2013 13:26 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm not sure how looking through everyone's data is more effective than just spending the same effort focussing on warranted suspects data...
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 06/12/2013 13:51 Comments || Top||


Government
DNI Clapper cracks e-mail jokes at Omni Shoreham banquet
Nit "witting" net-scandal humour may be just a tad premature, and certainly unappreciated.
Posted by: Besoeker || 06/12/2013 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



Who's in the News
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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2013-06-12
  Thousands Throng Istanbul Protest Square
Tue 2013-06-11
  Bombs and battles hit northern Iraq, more than 70 dead
Mon 2013-06-10
  Syria Islamists Execute Youth in Front of Family
Sun 2013-06-09
  Pak police recovers 15,000 kilos of explosive material
Sat 2013-06-08
  Tunisia Turns Away 8 Gulf Muslim Preachers
Fri 2013-06-07
  Seven killed in suspected U.S. drone strike in Pakistan
Thu 2013-06-06
  Nawaz Sharif elected as Pakistan PM
Wed 2013-06-05
  Locks Cut To Boston Water Supply Aqueduct
Tue 2013-06-04
  Missile Kills 26, including 8 Youths, in Syria Village
Mon 2013-06-03
  Damascus car bombing kills 9 security forces members
Sun 2013-06-02
  Second Muslim Convert Charged with London Soldier Murder
Sat 2013-06-01
  Turkey Finds Sarin Gas In Homes Of Suspected Syrian Islamists
Fri 2013-05-31
  Michigan Woman Dies In Syria, Fighting For Rebels
Thu 2013-05-30
  Pakistan: Wali ur-Rehman killed by US drone strike
Wed 2013-05-29
  French Police Arrest Suspect in Stabbing Attack on Soldier

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