tagged w/ Government Corruption
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Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house's owners to avoid paying property taxes.
Previously, the house -- despite being home to numerous lawmakers -- had been tax exempt, because it was classified as a church. That arrangement had allowed the building's owner, the secretive international Christian organization The Family, to charge significantly below market rents to its residents. In recent year, Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) have all reportedly called C Street home.
Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue for Washington D.C., told TPMmuckraker that her office inspected the house this summer. "It was determined that portions of it were being rented out for private residential purposes," she said. As a result, the tax exempt status was partially revoked. Sixty-six percent of the value of the property is now subject to taxation.
According to online records, the total taxable assessment is $1,834,500. The building's owner last month paid taxes of $1714.70 on the property.
A commenter using the name Vince Treacy, posting on a blog run by George Washington Law professor Jonathan Turley, noted in June that the property enjoyed tax exempt status. In a comment yesterday, he wrote:
Well, at least one complaint just happened to be filed a few months ago, by some anonymous citizen who will remain nameless ""wink, wink," with the taxpayer hotline at the DC tax office.
The C Street house has lately been the subject of unwanted attention thanks to its role in three GOP sex scandals. Ensign, who reportedly recently moved out of the house, was confronted there last year by his fellow C Streeters, including Coburn, about his affair with a top aide's wife. South Carolina governor Mark Sanford revealed this summer that he had received counseling from the house's denizens over his own randy hijinx with his Argentinean mistress. And the wife of former GOP congressman Chip Pickering has alleged in divorce proceedings that the house was the site of "wrongful conduct" between her husband and his girlfriend.
* This post originally reported, based on online records for the city of Washington, D.C., that C Street is owned by Youth With A Mission (YWAM), an international Christian group, and that YWAM is affiliated with The Family. But YWAM official Ron Boehme told TPMmuckraker that the city's records are inaccurate, and that his group sold the house to The Family in 1989. He also said that YWAM is not affiliated with The Family.Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a... more
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Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a loophole that had allowed the house's owners to avoid paying property taxes.
Previously, the house -- despite being home to numerous lawmakers -- had been tax exempt, because it was classified as a church. That arrangement had allowed the building's owner, the secretive international Christian organization The Family, to charge significantly below market rents to its residents. In recent year, Senators John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Jim DeMint (R-SC), and Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN), Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Mike Doyle (D-PA) have all reportedly called C Street home.
Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue for Washington D.C., told TPMmuckraker that her office inspected the house this summer. "It was determined that portions of it were being rented out for private residential purposes," she said. As a result, the tax exempt status was partially revoked. Sixty-six percent of the value of the property is now subject to taxation.
According to online records, the total taxable assessment is $1,834,500. The building's owner last month paid taxes of $1714.70 on the property.
A commenter using the name Vince Treacy, posting on a blog run by George Washington Law professor Jonathan Turley, noted in June that the property enjoyed tax exempt status. In a comment yesterday, he wrote:Residents of the C Street Christian fellowship house will no longer benefit from a... more
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FDA fails to follow up after finding that many cancer medications have failed to extend patients lives, no follow up testing has been done, and in some cases is decades over due.
A report due out today from the Government Accountability Office also shows that the FDA has never pulled a drug off the market due to a lack of required follow-up about its actual benefits - even when such information is more than a decade overdue.
The drug company are so bluntly corrupt they they don't even care if the dangerous chemotherapy drugs even work?
I know you are tempted but do not loss hope.....all is not lost...FDA fails to follow up after finding that many cancer medications have failed to... more
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Sweden, for instance, has set a 40 per cent target for 2020 and a new government bill requires its transport sector to be fossil-free by 2030. While such initiatives may be applauded, Sweden is as a result investing heavily in research and influencing EU-wide policy that provides financial incentives for companies to buy up land in Africa for biofuel production. Two Swedish biofuel companies, SweTree Technologies and SEKAB, currently sit on the industry-dominated board of the European Biofuels Technology Platform (EBTP). The EBTP have privileged access to European Commission decision-making and help shape research direction and spending of public money.[2] SweTree Technologies, for instance, is researching second-generation biofuels by genetically modifying trees for fuel conversion. SweTree’s director, Björn Hägglun, also happens to be the chief director of WWF (World Wildlife Fund) Sweden, only one of only two NGOs that has openly admitted its involvement with the EBTP. Second-generation biofuels are now mandated to produce twice as much energy compared to first-generation biofuels in meeting the 10 per cent EU-wide transport target.
Exporting biofuels or feedstocks from developing countries to the EU will push up food prices and hurt poor consumers. Studies and countless media reports link biofuel plantations with a number of destructive conditions that directly undermine their potential, not to mention ethics. For instance, the EU has a contractual obligation to import sugar from ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) states entering into an EPA (economic partnership agreement). But there are no clear legal mandates to determine the difference between 'environmentally sound' and 'environmentally damaging' imports.[3]
As such, European companies are scrambling for a slice of African soil. The financial incentives along with home policies drive the business fury and yet, according to a report by the European Parliament, only a tiny percentage of biofuel is imported from Africa because of high tariffs. The United Nations FAO (Food and Agricultural Organisation) along with the IIED (International Institute for Environment and Development) and the IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development) conducted a study that looks at the impact of land acquisition in Mali, Ghana, Sudan, Ethiopia and Madagascar. Since 2004, close to 2.5 million (ha) hectares of land – excluding land allocations below 1,000 ha – have been appropriated by foreign acquisition in these countries. Two-thirds of 3 billion people survive on around 500 million parcels of land less than two hectares in size. Most of the land claimed by foreign acquisition was already in use by local people. Women, who are the main food producers, were more easily driven out due to discrimination. In Tanzania, a sugarcane plantation for biofuel in the Wami basin displaced 1,000 farmers. The results are disheartening as people end up in over-populated urban centres and their outlying slums.
The promise of easy money in an environment without strong regulation and cheap land is a motivating factor for companies and the hosting government. Weak legislation means mechanisms that are supposed to protect local rights, interest, and welfare is disregarded.[4] Rich arable land used for commercial biofuel production has serious implications for a people who already spend 70 per cent of their incomes on food. Food and energy security concerns are supposed to be key drivers behind government-backed investments. However, the key driver behind these deals is investment opportunities. This is compounded by a global demand for non-food agricultural commodities and biofuels, which promise high rates of return. The buy-outs and speculation of African land is also driving up its value while policy measures in home and host countries encourage the scramble.
more at the link.Sweden, for instance, has set a 40 per cent target for 2020 and a new government bill... more
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Let's start off with some eternal truths.
-> One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
-> Those 545 human beings spend a lot of their energy (we call it campaigning after they've been elected.) convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. And most of the media cooperates as well.
-> Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Then they either make them worse or find a way to make sure the cure is worse than the original problem so that the cure also becomes a problem. That way, they can lie about what they've been doing to stave off the original problem.
-> You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. And congress authorizes the expenditures and the taxes to pay for them. Remember this always. Governments have no monies nor wealth that they don't first take from their subjects.
-> You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. Then the Senate is supposed to discuss and adjust those appropriations, not rubber stamp them. Of course, Senators are no longer beholden to the State Governments because they're popularly elected just like their Representative neighbors so they've become just another spending body. That's how elections are won. Buy the votes with their own monies collected through taxes they have no voice in controlling.
-> You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does. Them with the money makes the rules.
-> You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does. (occasionally, if the Federal Bank isn't looking.)
-> You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does. (which is another can of worms entirely - that problem was created by Congress in 1913)
-> No (intelligent) normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker of the House to stand up and criticize a President for creating deficits.
The Constitution, the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
The President only proposes a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it and he doesn't appropriate monies.
-> It is the speaker of the House, the leader of the majority party, and fellow House members, not the president, who approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they can manage to agree to.
-> There are no insoluble government problems except those Congress wishes to ignore and perpetuate.
-> It seems inconceivable that a nation of 300 million has not yet replaced a mere 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. There is not a single domestic problem that is not directly traceable to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist. It would seem self evident.
-> Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
-> Never vote for an incumbent. Throw'em all out. The very few honest ones will have no trouble finding honest work. The rest can go on welfare.
*source: PL Booth,
http://www.blueeyeview.blogspot.comLet's start off with some eternal truths.
-> One hundred senators, 435... more
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If this doesn't show proof of the demolition that was WTC 7, I don't know what does! Clearly you can see in this more recently released video a line of demo charges going offIf this doesn't show proof of the demolition that was WTC 7, I don't know what does!... more
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Former FBI Language Specialist Sibel Edmonds finally gets to testify under oath, after being hit with a gag order.
Bombshells Under Oath: INCLUDE: CONGRESS MEMBERS NAMED IN ESPIONAGE, BRIBERY, SEXUAL BLACKMAIL SCHEMES; NEW BREWSTER JENNINGS / VALERIE PLAME DISCLOSURE...
Long gagged under the "state secrets" privilege by the Bush Administration, the Obama Administration's DoJ chose not to re-invoke privilege, paving the way for this information to finally make its way on to the unclassified public record.
LINK TO ARTICLE: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7348.
Former FBI Language Specialist Sibel Edmonds finally gets to testify under oath,... more
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The search for truth is probably one of the most difficult and dangerous that a person can pursue, and always find it brings not only good but also bad consequences. The important thing is that there are always people who like you put your integrity and values ahead of any risk to put in the spotlight what others unscrupulous strive to hide.
Laura and Euna you are heroes, and there is no power, jail or government who can take that away from you.
This horrible experience its a medal of honor and only shows how low a government or some people in the power can go to silence what it could be an inconvenient truth.
Keep the good work and be blessed, so you can keep giving us that truth that now more than ever we desperately need.The search for truth is probably one of the most difficult and dangerous that a person... more
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"SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea's president ordered his top security officials Sunday to deal "resolutely and squarely" with new North Korean warnings of a nuclear war on the eve of his U.S. visit. In Washington, Vice President Joe Biden said "God only knows" what North Korea wants from the latest showdown."
Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear!
Same is it ever was...
Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan.....
All the worlds a stage, and we are merely players.....Only they ain't happy with comedy shows anymore!! Suspense-filled dramas, and murder mysteries are what's in now my friends!!!"SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea's president ordered his top security officials... more
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S3th
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added this
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5 months ago
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BBC World Service Presents - The Noisy Ape!
A look into today's noisy culture and its consequences to human life in the planet.
Manufacturing CD and MP3 players, radios, TV sets and all the rest of modern sound technology is big business, but there is just as much money to be made from fighting noise: noise-cancelling headphones, ear plugs and white-noise CDs all sell well.BBC World Service Presents - The Noisy Ape!
A look into today's noisy culture and... more
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Are you awake?
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S3th
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added this
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6 months ago
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I fully support Obama's decision and position on Gitmo, but I would take it a step further and do the entirely unconventional; I would embrace the terrorist.
Sounds crazy and if you are smart you ask why in the world would I do that??
First; we need to move beyond the concept of adversarial positions and seek to understand why they sought to do what they did.
Let's take a lesson from Israel's brain dead and immature policies (please forgive me, I mean no disrespect nor to defame immature people by lumping together the Israeli governments collective brain power and actions with immature people in general here), killing people does nothing to change an adversarial sentiment / feeling / belief / position, it actually strengthens it creating or evoking the opposite response desired or a person's claimed desire, witness the never ending battles between Israel and it's neighbors. In Israel's case, I think they know what they are doing and it's the land of their neighbors they covet.
Second; the Busheney administration let some "detainees" out and since we've found 1 in 7 returned to terrorism. Convenient for the Busheney cranial void to keep the threat of terrorism alive for their personal political ambitions and gain, but convenient because they could then use it in an attempt to "justify" the existence and ongoing use of Gitmo.
At the very least, it showed the vacuous Busheney cranial cavity was either negligent, incompetent or complicit to some degree in the perpetration of ongoing terrorist acts in the world. After all, they had complete control of every aspect of Gitmo and the "detainees" held there.
Third; assuming the impossible, that the Busheney "frain buck" (enjoy sorting that one out) wasn't attempting to manipulate American's perception by letting the terrorists out, the fact 1 in 7 "detainees" returned to "terrorism" is testimony to the reality the United States judicial system, the popularly held ideas and beliefs about it and it's effectiveness, it's purpose and relevance to society and humanity alike... IS WASHED UP, MISTAKEN, BROKEN and illustrates a profound misunderstanding and IGNORANCE of people, of self, of psychology, of constructive purpose, of direction, of usefulness, etc., etc., etc.
Fourth; it would behoove us to find out why they feel the way they do, why? and WHY? Our broken down system does little to ask that question because WHY?
Chenerific and friends were more interested in covering their own ASS (using what was known to produce false confessions linking Al Queda to Iraq) than seeking out the reasons WHY? If we asked why and learned something maybe, just maybe we'd realize we caused it and then could change our own actions to alleviate the threat. Maybe, we could learn something and have some understanding and then we could go to the middle east (or where ever) and be proactive at addressing the problems to make America and the world safer.
Maybe, maybe, our ambitions were the villain and that villain did not want to admit it's crimes. Maybe that villain feeling justified and intoxicated by it's own power to destroy didn't care about the consequences their actions had on other people or countries. Maybe, the manner in which the Busheney gang went about things REFLECTS the fact they were the perpetrators of terror under the guise of "defending America", and that every action was an attempt to justify or hide their intentions and aggression. It isn't hard to see.
Wasn't it largely about Iraq's OIL!?
As for Cheney carrying on, he can't give up the battling position he's grown accused to over the previous eight years. Someone tell him to go home.I fully support Obama's decision and position on Gitmo, but I would take it a step... more
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Texas, Bush's state, is a lawless gang wonderland where Governor Rick Perry oversees mafia / street gang style extortion on the part of law enforcement officials according to CNN's investigation.
Is it too much to ask that those who make their living to protect and represent Americans to actually do their jobs and that they be held accountable?
Makes one wonder about the sanity and morality of those judges, district attorneys, the Attorney General of Texas, assembly members, Representatives and Senators of the state of Texas who have turned a blind eye to what's going on.
The Texas two step? The city's District Attorney, Mayor and it's policemen should all be prosecuted.
An excerpt from the article:
"The Tennessee man says he was ordered to pull his car over and surrender his jewelry and $8,500 in cash that he had with him to buy a new car.
But Daniels couldn't go to the police to report the incident.
The men who stopped him were the police.
Daniels was stopped on U.S. Highway 59 outside Tenaha, near the Louisiana state line. Police said he was driving 37 mph in a 35 mph zone. They hauled him off to jail and threatened him with money-laundering charges -- but offered to release him if he signed papers forfeiting his property.
"I actually thought this was a joke," Daniels told CNN."
More at link: http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=104245.0Texas, Bush's state, is a lawless gang wonderland where Governor Rick Perry oversees... more
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Obama's DoJ picks have their mouths tightly slurping on RIAA & MPAA bigwigs' peckers, but their claim of "national security" reasons to deny Freedom of Information Act requests about their intentions regarding copyright law changes and the new "multinational treaty" they intend to ratify really could choke a two-dollar whoreObama's DoJ picks have their mouths tightly slurping on RIAA & MPAA bigwigs' peckers,... more
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I have proposed the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate abuses during the Bush-Cheney Administration -- so they never happen again. These abuses may include the use of torture, warrantless wiretapping, extraordinary rendition, and executive override of laws.
Please sign this online petition, urging Congress to consider establishing a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate the Bush-Cheney Administration's abuses.I have proposed the idea of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate... more
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Reporting from Berners Bay, Alaska -- Sitting like a turquoise gem in a bowl of hemlock, Sitka spruce and ice, Berners Bay has long been a jewel of Alaska's Tongass National Forest.
In the spring, swarms of tiny eulachon rush in to spawn, and the bay floods with hundreds of killer whales, humpback whales and sea lions in hot pursuit, along with eagles and seabirds by the thousands. Fishermen flock to its herring, salmon and Dungeness crab. Its chilly, tranquil waters are a favorite destination for kayakers.Reporting from Berners Bay, Alaska -- Sitting like a turquoise gem in a bowl of... more
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- New documents show the CIA destroyed nearly 100 tapes of terror interrogations, far more than has previously been acknowledged.
The revelation Monday comes as a criminal prosecutor is wrapping up his investigation in the matter.
The acknowledgment of dozens of destroyed tapes came in a letter filed by government lawyers in New York, where the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking more details of terror interrogation programs.WASHINGTON (AP) -- New documents show the CIA destroyed nearly 100 tapes of terror... more
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In a Feb. 23 memo to the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, officials in the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration said inaccurate inventory records at the lab's plutonium research, development and processing facility raised doubts about the lab's ability to "deter and detect theft and diversion of special nuclear material."
The memo was in response to the findings of a special review team's assessment of an "incident of security concern" involving amounts of nuclear material "that exceeded alarm limits with no suspicion of theft or diversion" earlier this month.In a Feb. 23 memo to the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, officials in... more
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The acting Pentagon inspector general Thursday detailed for the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee billions of dollars of waste from excessive prices, unjustified expenses and fraud and criminal activity in military contracts, largely due to an understaffed, poorly trained contracting work force coping with an explosive growth in spending.
The examples provided by Gordon Heddell ranged from Marine Corps officials failing to determine what were "fair and reasonable" prices for armored vehicles rushed to Iraq in a $9.1 billion program to a firm that fraudulently charged $24 million for shipping thousands of dollars of small parts to the war zone.
The owners' final act before being caught was charging $998,798 to ship two flat washers worth 19 cents each, Heddell said.The acting Pentagon inspector general Thursday detailed for the House Defense... more
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He compares the current mistaken focus on bailouts � from Wall Street to the auto industry � to the early mistakes of another president faced with economic disaster: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose initial rejection of the revolutionary concepts of John Maynard Keynes helped prolong the worldwide economic misery of the late 1920s and 1930s.
It may take another heretic to pull America out of its current downhill slide this time around.
�Ravi is a phenomenon � the best predictive record of any economist, past or present � and he does it all by reference to recorded, empirical facts, not paradigm [or] ideology,� said Prof. Rajani Kannepalli Kanth, a visiting scholar at Harvard University who specializes in political economy and social anthropology.
His supporters think Batra should long ago have won a Nobel Prize and that President-elect Barack Obama ought to be calling him with offers of cabinet posts or at least asking for his advice.
But instead, despite his sterling record and best-selling books, Batra remains somewhat isolated in the economics field, the result of one bad call and, more to the point, an economic theory that flies in the face of today�s accepted wisdom � in the face, that is, of the theories and practices that got us in the horrendous spot we�re in today.
�We are on the verge of a social revolution � it�s already started [with Obama�s election]. The second part, where the theories are discarded and new ideas take over and new reforms take over � that part has yet to occur, and that will take a few years,� he predicted. �After that occurs, the age of acquisitors will be over, and there will be a new age with a totally different attitude toward taxation and the economic system.�
The revolution, which he believes could happen in a couple of years or sometime soon after that, should bring in a new chapter of greater economic equality and less poverty and suffering � first in the U.S., then rippling out to the rest of the world, he thinks.
�The U.S. has never been in any other age other than the age of acquisitors. So this will be a new experience for the U.S.,� he said.He compares the current mistaken focus on bailouts � from Wall Street to the auto... more
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