Contractor
this category relates to private military (not suppliers of weapons)
also refers to construction and other services co's that privatize gov't functs
TRUMP WALL GUY? musk bezos jrnl fail
SEE WEAPONS DEFENSE
may also include pvt intel, related to subsidy?
THIEL AND MUSK ON THE TEAT BEZOS sil valley tech bro corps
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-=-=
BALLROOM JUN 2026 PUB CIT
https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/BALLROOM_BILLIONS_June_2026.pdf
Table 1: Corporate Ballroom Donors With New/Increased Gov. Contracts Over Last 6 Months Corporate Ballroom Donor Corporate Sector New & Increased Government Contracts Over Last 6 Months
Lockheed Martin Aerospace/Defense $43,800,000,000 Booz Allen Hamilton Management Consulting $4,200,000,000 Palantir Consulting/Tech $1,032,100,000 Parsons Engineering/Defense $446,900,000 Microsoft Big Tech $318,700,000 Amazon Big Tech $255,700,000 HP Big Tech $197,289,650 Caterpillar Construction $142,600,000 T-Mobile Telecommunications $22,374,089 Google Big Tech $16,400,000 NextEra Energy Energy $13,490,896 Comcast Telecommunications $13,438,137 Vantive Health Care $468,192 Union Pacific Railroad Transportation $55,820 Total $50,459,516,784
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an 12 25
President Donald Trump's eldest son is poised to benefit from a multi-million business deal secured with the Pentagon, The Daily Beast reports.
Vulcan Elements, a "little known startup" backed by Donald Trump Jr. "is slated for a roughly $620 million Defense Department loan under the deal," the *Financial Times* reports.
The recipient of investments from Trump Jr.'s 1798 Capital venture firm, Vulcan is a tiny rare-earths start-up, whose deal with the Defense Department will increase the domestic industrial supply of magnets, they explain.
The president's "persistent confusion about magnets has spurred mockery from his detractors, who have noted that his public comments on the matter are uncannily reminiscent of a 2010 song by Insane Clown Posse, “Miracles,” writes The Daily Beast, "which features rapper Shaggy 2 Dope delivering the immortal lines: 'F—— magnets, how do they work?'"
The loan is part of a wider $1.4 billion investment in the sector, appears to represent the largest ever granted by the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital, and only the latest plushy government deal handed to a company backed by Trump Jr., The Daily Beast explains.
Vulcan is just the latest to profit off of Trump Jr.'s last name.
"Four firms within 1789 Capital’s portfolio, which also holds significant investments in other government contractors like SpaceX and Anduril, have reportedly landed contracts worth a combined $735 million since the MAGA leader assumed office for the second time in January," they note.
"Vulcan Elements’ deal with the Pentagon stands out both for the record-breaking size of the loan, and for the nature of services it will provide under the arrangement," they explain.
Kedric Payne, an ethics attorney, cries foul, telling the Financial Times, "Presidents are expected to avoid even the appearance that they are using their office to financially benefit themselves or their family."
“While we do not know for certain if, or how, the president may have influenced this loan, it falls under the cloud of conflicts of interest we have seen throughout his administration," Payne adds.
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an 10 24
With a reported net worth of more than $204 billion (according to Forbes), Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is among the richest men in the world.
Bezos has been drawing a great deal of criticism in response to reports that he blocked an endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris that the Post's editorial board was planning to publish. The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last believes that Bezos killed the endorsement because he fears the possibility of retaliation from former President Donald Trump if he wins the election on November 5.
But Bezos, reportedly, isn't the only business leader who is worried about being targeted for revenge if Trump returns to the White House.
READ MORE:**Leaked memo reveals plan for Trump to skip 'traditional background checks' if elected: NYT**
In an article published by the Post on October 28, reporters Jeff Stein, Jacqueline Alemany and Josh Dawsey stress that some business leaders are toning down their criticism of Trump — as they don't want to risk being targeted for revenge.
"With the White House appearing increasingly up for grabs, and especially as polls have tightened, numerous billionaires and other leading executives have taken steps, in recent months, to stay out of the race — even if they had criticized Trump after the Capitol insurrection of January 6, 2021, calling his encouragement of the riot a threat to American democracy," the Post reporters explain. "Others who previously backed Democrats have stayed silent this election, which some critics and Trump supporters alike have interpreted as a peace offering to the GOP presidential nominee."
Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, finds it disturbing that Trump is able to "intimidate" business leaders.
Riedl told the Post, "Trump has had no issue calling out political enemies by name and threatening to use the force of government for retribution, and apparently, that is intimidating a lot of wealthy targets. It is a very scary sign that government intimidation works."
READ MORE:[Threatening ‘the enemy within’ with force: Military ethicists explain the danger to important American traditions
Former UBS Chairman Robert Wolf, once an economic adviser to former President Barack Obama, said that some business leaders are "nervous" about what Trump will do if he returns to the White House.
Wolf told the Post, "Public company CEOs want to have it both ways: They want to be viewed as the thought leaders of the country, but when it comes to this highly contentious election, they want to hide behind their titles. Many are nervous that if Trump wins, he's going to respond or even retaliate."
READ MORE:[How LGBTQ+ voters in these 4 states could swing the 2024 presidential election
*Read the full Washington Post article at this link (subscription required).
===
AN 10 24
Amazon CEO and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has been drawing widespread criticism following reports that he blocked the publication's editorial board from publishing an endorsement of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Bezos reportedly made the decision not because he is pro-Donald Trump, but because he feared retaliation if he published a Harris endorsement and Trump won the election. And Bezos, as he saw it, was protecting his business interests.
In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on October 28, Never Trumper Jonathan V. Last describes Bezos' decision as a "catastrophic failure of the rule of law."
READ MORE:**Former WaPo editor reveals 'proof' of Trump’s 'backroom deal' with Amazon founder: report**
"What we witnessed on Friday was not a case of censorship or a failure of the media," Last argues. "It had nothing to do with journalism or the Washington Post. It was something much, much more consequential. It was about oligarchy, the rule of law, and the failure of the democratic order."
Bezos, Last laments, was obviously trying to avoid being targeted for revenge by a possible second Trump Administration.
"When Bezos decreed that the newspaper he owned could not endorse Trump' opponent," Last explains, "it was a transparent act of submission born of an intuitive understanding of the differences between the candidates. Bezos understood that if he antagonized Kamala Harris and Harris became president, he would face no consequences. A Harris Administration would not target his businesses because the Harris Administration would — like all presidential administrations not headed by Trump — adhere to the rule of law."
Last continues, "Bezos likewise understood that the inverse was not true. If he continued to antagonize Trump and Trump became president, his businesses very much would be targeted. So bending the knee to Trump was the smart play. All upside, no downside."
READ MORE:**Leaked memo reveals plan for Trump to skip 'traditional background checks' if elected: NYT**
According to Last, Bezos' "submission" to Trump is a warning to business owners that they will be targeted for revenge if they openly criticize him.
"What Trump understood was that Bezos' submission would be of limited use if it was kept quiet," Last argues. "Because the point of dominating Bezos wasn't just to dominate Bezos. It was to send a message to every other businessman, entrepreneur, and corporation in America: that these are the rules of the game. If you are nice to Trump, the government will be nice to you. If you criticize Trump, the government will be used against you."
READ MORE:[Harris' closing message: Why it must center on anti-elitist economics
*Jonathan V. Last's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.
===
10 24 ymail judd pop info
owner Jeff Bezos spreads his hands after a ceremonial ribbon cutting during dedication ceremonies for the new Washington Post offices on January, 28, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Jeff Bezos is the second-richest person in the world, with a net worth of approximately $211 billion. Most of Bezos' wealth is derived from his 9% stake in Amazon, the company he founded. Bezos also founded and owns Blue Origin, a private space exploration company worth billions.
Bezos also owns the Washington Post, which he purchased in 2013 for $250 million in cash. Is Bezos now making decisions at the Washington Post to protect and enhance the value of his other enterprises? Many current and former employees of the Washington Post believe so.
The business interests of Amazon and Blue Origin — and, therefore, Bezos — are inextricably linked to the federal government. Consider:
In 2021, Amazon was awarded a $10 billion cloud-computing contract with the National Security Agency. It also has a portion of a $9 billion cloud-computing contract inked in 2022 with the Department of Defense and a multi-billion dollar cloud-computing contract with the CIA.
In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon, alleging "the online retail and technology company is a monopolist that uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power." The lawsuit seeks "a permanent injunction in federal court that would prohibit Amazon from engaging in its unlawful conduct and pry loose Amazon’s monopolistic control to restore competition."
> In May 2023, Blue Origin was awarded a $3.4 billion contract to build a lunar lander for NASA. Between 2025 and 2029, the company is expected to compete for $5.6 billion in space launch contracts for the Pentagon.
The Washington Post, unlike Amazon and Blue Origin, has been a money loser for Bezos, reportedly running a deficit of $100 million last year. More importantly, Bezos believes that former President Trump's hostility toward the Washington Post, which produced critical coverage of Trump's presidency, cost his companies billions in government contracts. In 2019, Amazon sued the federal government for awarding a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft, alleging that Amazon lost out on the contract based on Bezos' ownership of the Washington Post:
President Trump has made no secret of his personal dislike for Mr. Bezos, Amazon, and the Washington Post, or of his express desire to harm them. The seeds of this animus originate with the Washington Post's coverage of him before he even was elected President. That coverage placed Mr. Bezos, Amazon, and the Washington Post directly in the crosshairs of President Trump's wrath.
…After he assumed office, President Trump grew "obsessed" with Mr. Bezos and determined to "f'*** with him." His new powers expanded his ability to punish Mr. Bezos for the Washington Post's coverage of him
…President Trump has frequently referred to the "Amazon Washington Post" as a single entity, and he has frequently hurled invective against Amazon whenever the Washington Post publishes articles that he believes slight him or his Administration. President Trump has also repeatedly claimed the Washington Post is selling "fake news," and he has called it an "[e]nemy of the [p]eople[.]"
In a few months, it is possible that Trump will be president again. This time, Bezos faces an even more acute threat to his business interests. Elon Musk, who owns Blue Origin's chief rival SpaceX, has aligned himself closely with Trump, spending tens of millions in support of Trump's campaign and making appearances in swing states on Trump's behalf.
On Friday, days before the election, Washington Post publisher William Lewis — installed by Bezos earlier this year — announced that "the Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election." The announcement, less than 2 weeks before Election Day, was a break from decades of precedent. Bezos made the decision, according to the New York Times, after the Washington Post "editorial board had already drafted an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris."
Marty Baron, the former Executive Editor of the Washington Post, slammed Bezos' decision as "cowardice" and linked it to Bezos' desire to appease Trump. Baron said it would backfire, and Trump would "see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner [Bezos]."
Hours after Lewis published the announcement, Trump was seen meeting with Blue Origin CEO David Limp. Steven Cheung, the Trump campaign's chief spokesman, embraced the suggestion that the meeting and the announcement of the non-endorsement were linked.
Robert Kagan, who worked at the Washington Post for two decades and resigned immediately following Lewis' announcement, said the meeting was evidence of a quid pro quo. “Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do, and then met with the Blue Origin people,” Kagan told The Daily Beast. “Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”
According to CNN, "Amazon CEO Andy Jassy also recently reached out to check in" with Trump.
The apparent capitulation to Trump illustrates the danger of billionaires scooping up major media organizations as a side hustle. For nearly everyone, the price Bezos paid for the Washington Post is an unfathomable amount of money. For Bezos, it's less than half the $575 million he paid for his new 417-foot superyacht, Koru, and its 246-foot support yacht, Abeona, which has a helipad, accommodations for staff, and storage for smaller boats and jet skis.
Bezos did not get to the point where he could afford such yachts through his dedication to journalistic integrity. He became the second-wealthiest person in the world by prioritizing the bottom line. And it appears that continues to be his priority.
The Washington Post's incoherent defense
Lewis claims that the decision not to endorse a presidential candidate was based on principle. Specifically, Lewis says the decision was guided by the belief that the Washington Post's mission "is to provide through the newsroom nonpartisan news for all Americans, and thought-provoking, reported views from our opinion team to help our readers make up their own minds."
Lewis doesn't explain why, if that was the case, the Washington Post editorial board endorsed candidates for U.S. Senate and House earlier this month. If it is about the principle that readers should "make up their own minds," why does that principle only apply to presidential candidates?
Further, Lewis tried to insulate Bezos from the fallout. The Washington Post reported that the "decision to no longer publish presidential endorsements was made by The Post’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, according to four people who were briefed on the decision."
Lewis attempted to undermine his own paper's reporting, claiming that "[r]eporting around the role of The Washington Post owner and the decision not to publish a presidential endorsement has been inaccurate." But Lewis did not directly dispute that it was Bezos' decision. Instead, he said only that Bezos "was not sent, did not read and did not opine on any draft" — a claim that no one actually made.
Washington Post staff was not buying it. 17 members of the paper's opinion staff signed onto a statement calling the decision not to endorse a "terrible mistake." The Washington Post Guild, the union that represents the paper's reporters, said in a statement that the decision "undercuts the work of our members at a time when we should be building our readers’ trust, not losing it." Legendary Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward called the decision "surprising and disappointing, especially this late in the electoral process."
One could legitimately conclude that newspaper endorsements have outlived their usefulness. It is the timing and context of the Washington Post's change that is raising alarm bells.
The billionaire owner of the LA Times
Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of the LA Times, also abruptly demanded his publication stay neutral in the presidential election. Soon-Shiong bought the paper for $500 million in 2018.
Soon-Shiong is a healthcare and biotech entrepreneur whose companies rely on the federal government. His companies regularly seek FDA approval for new drugs, vaccines and therapies and federal funding for research.
The editorial board had planned to endorse Kamala Harris and publish a series of columns tentatively titled "The Case Against Trump." But in a post on X, Soon-Shiong said he offered the LA Times editorial board "the opportunity to draft a factual analysis of all the POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE policies by EACH candidate during their tenures at the White House, and how these policies affected the nation." Soon-Shiong said that "[i]nstead of adopting this path as suggested, the Editorial Board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision."
Soon-Shiong did not explain why he did not demand a similar approach for U.S. House and Senate races, state ballot initiatives, and many other contests facing California voters. Beginning in September, the LA Times has endorsed in dozens of races up and down the ballot.
In response to the spiking of the presidential endorsement, 200 LA Times staff members signed an open letter calling on Soon-Shiong to "provide readers with an explanation for not issuing an endorsement, along with clarity about the broader endorsement process."
Three members of the paper's editorial board have resigned. "I am resigning because I want to make it clear that I am not okay with us being silent," Mariel Garza, the LA Times editorials editor, said. "In dangerous times, honest people need to stand up. This is how I’m standing up."
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YiKES OMG SEE FAscism see pluto
an 10 24
Former Washington Post editor-at-large, Robert Kagan, revealed to The Daily Beast on Saturday that the newspaper's owner — Amazon's Jeff Bezos — and 2024 GOP nominee Donald Trump, allegedly agreed on a plan to "kill" thePost's endorsement of 2024 Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, the news outlet reports.
The Beast notes:
Bezos knows first hand the consequences of criticizing the former president. The Post’s 2016 endorsement of Hillary Clinton is widely thought to have led to him losing out on a $10 billion cloud computing defense contract awarded by the Trump administration.
Following his Friday resignation from thePost,Kagan told the Beast "that Trump’s meeting with executives of Bezos’ Blue Origin space company the same day that the Amazonfounder killed a plan to support Harris was proof of the backroom deal."
READ MORE:['Bit of a panic': Trump adviser’s attack on bombshell WaPo report fact-checked by expert
The ex-Post editor said, "Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do, and then met with the Blue Origin people. Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”
Per the report, Kagan warned that this kind of "alleged collusion between" the billionaire tech founder and Trump "is just the beginning," and emphasized there will be "a lot of self censorship [in the media] and a lot of changing course just to be sure that they’re not going to be punished," if the MAGA leader wins the White House.
"This is what we have to look forward to," Kagan told the Post. "All Trump has to do is threaten the corporate chiefs who run these organizations with real financial loss, and they will bend the knee."
---
YiKES OMG SEE FAscism see pluto
an 10 24
Former Washington Post editor-at-large, Robert Kagan, revealed to The Daily Beast on Saturday that the newspaper's owner — Amazon's Jeff Bezos — and 2024 GOP nominee Donald Trump, allegedly agreed on a plan to "kill" thePost's endorsement of 2024 Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, the news outlet reports.
The Beast notes:
Bezos knows first hand the consequences of criticizing the former president. The Post’s 2016 endorsement of Hillary Clinton is widely thought to have led to him losing out on a $10 billion cloud computing defense contract awarded by the Trump administration.
Following his Friday resignation from thePost,Kagan told the Beast "that Trump’s meeting with executives of Bezos’ Blue Origin space company the same day that the Amazonfounder killed a plan to support Harris was proof of the backroom deal."
READ MORE:['Bit of a panic': Trump adviser’s attack on bombshell WaPo report fact-checked by expert
The ex-Post editor said, "Trump waited to make sure that Bezos did what he said he was going to do, and then met with the Blue Origin people. Which tells us that there was an actual deal made, meaning that Bezos communicated, or through his people, communicated directly with Trump, and they set up this quid pro quo.”
Per the report, Kagan warned that this kind of "alleged collusion between" the billionaire tech founder and Trump "is just the beginning," and emphasized there will be "a lot of self censorship [in the media] and a lot of changing course just to be sure that they’re not going to be punished," if the MAGA leader wins the White House.
"This is what we have to look forward to," Kagan told the Post. "All Trump has to do is threaten the corporate chiefs who run these organizations with real financial loss, and they will bend the knee."
Once upon a time, here in the United States, we taxed the rich. Significantly. Today, by contrast, we’re actively enhancing their fortunes. Including the biggest personal fortune of them all, the quarter-trillion-dollar stash that belongs to Elon Musk, the current numero uno on the Forbes'real-time list of the world’s largest fortunes.
Musk owes a hefty chunk of his own personal fortune to the taxes average Americans pay. He just happens to be, notes a just-published Politico analysis, “the single biggest beneficiary of U.S. government contracts.”
Two of Musk’s commercial operations, Tesla and SpaceX, have received billions in American taxpayer support. The federal government, Politico points out, has essentially “outsourced its space program” to SpaceX, and Tesla, a shaky electric vehicle company when Musk bought it, only “took off after receiving $465 million in subsidies from the Obama administration in 2010.”
All the tax dollars that Musk has collected from the Defense Department, NASA, and the U.S. intelligence community — coupled with the “generous government subsidies and tax credits to the electric-vehicle industry” that have so boosted Musk’s Tesla — have Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Max Boot fairly fuming.
Taxpayers like himself, Boot notes, are subsidizing the “fire hose of falsehoods” that now appear on X, the former Twitter, the social media app that Musk bought for $44 billion two years ago. Our tax dollars have essentially supersized our world’s single wealthiest individual.
Back in the middle of the 20th century, the United States took quite a different approach to the money pouring into rich people’s pockets. From the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, the incomes of America’s richest faced a tax bite that would be unimaginable today.
In 1942, then-president Franklin Roosevelt proposed a 100 percent tax rate on income over $25,000, the equivalent of about $484,000 today. Congress wouldn’t go along with that 100 percent top rate. But lawmakers did give the okay to a 94 percent top tax rate on 1944 income over $200,000.
In the 1950s, under the Republican president Dwight Eisenhower, the federal tax rate on top-bracket income never dipped below 91 percent.
Today’s top-bracket federal income tax rate? That stands, on paper, at 37 percent on income over $693,751 for a couple filing jointly. But assorted loopholes have left the tax rate the rich face on their actual annual gains enormously lower.
In 2021, a joint report from the Biden administration’s Office of Management and Budget and Council of Economic Advisers calculated that America’s wealthiest 400 billionaire families, between 2010 and 2018, “paid an average of just 8.2 percent of their income” — counting the gains in the value of their investments — in federal individual income taxes.
“That’s a lower rate,” the report noted, “than many ordinary Americans pay.”
Could we ever get back to anything close to Eisenhower-era tax rates on the richest among us? This past March, the Biden administration proposed a 25 percent minimum tax on the total income — including unrealized capital gains — of the nation’s top 0.01 percent, households worth at least $100 million.
About the same time, progressive lawmakers — led by U.S. senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and representatives Pramila Jayapal from Washington State and Brendan Boyle from Pennsylvania — introduced the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, legislation that would impose a wealth tax on America’s 100,000 wealthiest households, our richest 0.05 percent.
Under this proposed legislation, wealthy households worth up to $1 billion would face an annual tax of 2 percent on their wealth over $50 million. Richer households would face an additional 1 percent tax on wealth over $1 billion.
One of the Senate co-sponsors of that legislation, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, has also gone a step further and called for a 100 percent tax on wealth over $1 billion.
“I think people can make it on $999 million,” Sanders told journalist Chris Wallace last year.
Sanders and one of America’s most famous deep pockets, Bill Gates, have actually had a friendly podcast discussion over whether our tax rates should allow billion-dollar fortunes to even exist. The Sanders proposal, noted Gates, would tax away over 99 percent of his personal fortune. Gates would be willing to let the IRS take 62 percent, about $100 billion.
For a better America, that certainly might make a good place to start.
===
https://theintercept.com/2022/05/18/google-amazon-israel-military-nimbus/
palestine surveil? might be working for pvt corp vs cty? still a contractor?
===
rev door mil logistic bd, hallib charged govt for meals never provided; did intial study bush 41 that said pvt cheaper but real # 2x more $
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/study-says-nearly-half-of-defense-spending-for-9-11-wars-went-to-private-contractors
Sep 13, 2021 5:58 PM EDT
Up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the Pentagon since 9/11 went to for-profit defense contractors,a study released Monday found. While much of this money went to weapons suppliers, the research is the latest to point to the dependence on contractors for war-zone duties as contributing to mission failures in Afghanistan in particular.
In the post-9/11 wars, U.S. corporations contracted by the Defense Department not only handled war-zone logistics like running fuel convoys and staffing chow lines but performed mission-crucial work like [dyncorp]training and equipping Afghan security forces — security forces that collapsed last month as the Taliban swept the country.
Within weeks, and before the U.S. military had even completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban easily routed an Afghan government and military that Americans had spent 20 years and billions of dollars to stand up. President Joe Biden placed blame squarely on the Afghans themselves. “We gave them every chance,” he said last month. “What we could not provide them was the will to fight.”
But William Hartung, the author of Monday’s study by Brown University’s Costs of War project and the Center for International Policy,and others say it’s essential that Americans examine what role the reliance on private contractors played in the post-9/11 wars. In Afghanistan, that included contractors allegedly paying protection money to warlords and the Taliban themselves, and the Defense Department insisting on equipping the Afghan air force with complex Blackhawk helicopters and other aircraft that few but U.S. contractors knew how to maintain.
“If it were only the money, that would be outrageous enough,” Hartung, the director of the arms and security program at the Center for International Policy, said of instances where the Pentagon’s reliance on contractors backfired. “But the fact it undermined the mission and put troops at risk is even more outrageous.”
At the start of this year, before Biden began the final American withdrawal from Afghanistan, there were far more contractors in Afghanistan and also in Iraq than U.S. troops.
The U.S. saw about 7,000 military members die in all post-9/11 conflicts, and nearly 8,000 contractors, another Costs of War study estimates.[total pvt out# mil 150k?]
The Professional Services Council, an organization representing businesses contracting with the government, cited a lower figure from the U.S. Department of Labor saying nearly 4,000 federal contractors have been killed since 2001.
A spokeswoman pointed to a statement last month from the organization’s president, David J. Berteau: “For almost two decades, government contractors have provided broad and essential support for U.S. and allied forces, for the Afghan military and other elements of the Afghan government, and for humanitarian and economic development assistance.”
U.S. officials after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks embraced private contractors as an essential part of the U.S. military response.
It started with then-Vice President Dick Cheney, [nope bush 41 hallib study to pvtize]the former CEO of Halliburton. Halliburton received more than $30 billion to help set up and run bases, feed troops and carry out other work in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2008, the study says. Cheney and defense contractors argued that relying on private contractors for work that service members did in previous wars would allow for a trimmer U.S. military, and be more efficient and cost effective.
By 2010, Pentagon spending had surged by more than one-third, as the U.S. fought dual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a post-9/11 American, politicians vied to show support for the military in a country grown far more security conscious.
“Any member of Congress who doesn’t vote for the funds we need to defend this country will be looking for a new job after next November,” the study notes Harry Stonecipher, then the vice president of Boeing, telling The Wall Street Journal the month after the attacks.[up 3-5% /yr soon to hill trillion; reconciliation 3.5 trill over 10 years so this is 2x?!]
And up to a third of the Pentagon contracts went to just five weapons suppliers. Last fiscal year, for example, the money Lockheed Martin alone got from Pentagon contracts was one and a half times the entire budgets of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the study.
The Pentagon pumped out more contracts than it could oversee, lawmakers and government special investigators said.
For example, a Florida Republican Party official made millions on what lawmakers charged were excess profits when the U.S. granted a one-of-a-kind contract for fuel convoys from Jordan to Iraq, the study notes. The electrocution of at least 18 service members by bad wiring in bases in Iraq, some of it blamed on major contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root, was another of many instances where government investigations pointed to shoddy logistics and reconstruction work.
The stunning Taliban victory last month in Afghanistan is drawing attention now to even graver consequences: the extent to which the U.S. reliance on contractors may have heightened the difficulties of the Afghan security forces.
Jodi Vittori, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel and scholar of corruption and fragile states at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who was not involved in the study, points to the U.S. insistence that the Afghan air force use U.S.-made helicopters. Afghans preferred Russian helicopters, which were easier to fly, could be maintained by Afghans, and were suited to rugged Afghanistan.
When U.S. contractors pulled out with U.S. troops this spring and summer, taking their knowledge of how to maintain U.S.-provided aircraft with them, top Afghan leaders bitterly complained to the U.S. that it had deprived them of one essential advantage over the Taliban.
Hartung, like others, also points to the corruption engendered by the billions of loosely monitored dollars that the U.S. poured into Afghanistan as one central reason that Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government lost popular support, and Afghan fighters lost morale.
Hillary Clinton, while secretary of state under President Barack Obama, accused defense contractors at risk in war zones of resorting to payoffs to armed groups, making protection money one of the biggest sources of funding for the Taliban.
The United States also relied, in part, on defense contractors to carry out one of the tasks most central to its hopes of success in Afghanistan — helping to set up and train an Afghan military and other security forces that could stand up to extremist groups and to insurgents, including the Taliban.
Tellingly, Vittori said, it was Afghan commandos who had consistent training by U.S. special operations forces and others who did most of the fighting against the Taliban last month.
Relying less on private contractors, and more on the U.S. military as in past wars, might have given the U.S. better chances of victory in Afghanistan, Vittori noted. She said that would have meant U.S. presidents accepting the political risks of sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and getting more body bags of U.S. troops back.
“Using contractors allowed America to fight a war that a lot of Americans forgot we were fighting,” Vittori said.
no lnx
https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-september-14-2021/
==
https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/how-a-con-artist-scammed-the-u-s-government-from-the-shadows/
no lnx
Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly September 17, 2020
On October 23rd, Garrison Courtney will be sentenced in court after pleading guilty to an elaborate fraud scheme that raked in at least $4.4 million from federal contractors. The tale reads like a Hollywood script. Courtney had a relatively undistinguished career as a spokesperson for the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. But apparently he studied up on spycraft and, as his high school drama teacher suggested, “Sometimes I think I trained him too well as an actor.”
Courtney presented himself to unwitting private companies as a CIA agent who could steer contracts their way if they gave him a salary and an office. To back up his story, Courtney produced memos on the letterhead of various federal agencies spelling out authorization for what he was doing and containing the forged signatures of high-level government officials. He also recruited current and former military leaders to a task force he named “Alpha214” and used them as unwitting props to validate his claims.
Incredibly, the now 44-year-old built enough of a reputation to actually place himself inside the National Institutes of Health as a watchdog over the allocation of no-bid contracts. What you have at that point is the proverbial fox inside the henhouse. But by that time, the scheme had started to unravel.
Some of the heroes of this story were lawyers at the companies Courtney swindled who began asking why they weren’t being paid under the contracts they had signed.
Navid Keshavarz-Nia was another hero. He had done cybersecurity and technical counterintelligence work for the C.I.A., N.S.A. and F.B.I. After several months of working with Courtney, he fired off a resignation letter from Alpha214, distributed to its members, and addressed Courtney directly: “It is clear that I have been deliberately deceived, lied to and criminally victimized by you based on your numerous false statements.” At about the same time, the Justice Department began an investigation.
It’s not hard to figure out how this fraud could work. You take a skilled con artist and add it to the feeding frenzy for government contracts. Combine that toxic mix with something my colleague Gilad Edelman wrote for the Washington Monthly three years ago.
While the number of federal employees has basically flatlined for a half-century, the government has ballooned if you include another group in your tally: private contractors. As the size and scope of federal programs grew, but the number of civil servants stayed fixed, that labor had to get done by someone. Congress’s answer has increasingly been to contract with the private sector…
Very few Americans realize that this exact trend—using contractors to hide the true size and cost of a government mission—is not even close to being limited to the military. It’s ubiquitous. There has been a de facto political cap on federal workers since the 1970s, and every administration since at least Jimmy Carter’s has used contractors to get around it. Bill Clinton, who announced that “the era of big government is over,” harvested the end of the Cold War to cut 400,000 federal jobs, mostly in defense. But big government was only over if you ignored the contracting workforce, which kept rising by the hundreds of thousands. The Bush administration took things to another level, as contracting morphed from a way to sneakily expand government to an ideological goal in itself.
There are lessons from this tale that go beyond the importance of holding an individual like Courtney accountable for his crimes. Here’s how Edleman summarized the situation:
The key is to transcend the false choice of big government versus small government. The real choice is between a transparent and relatively competent big government of civil servants and a dysfunctional shadow big government of private contractors.
Whenever our government operates in the shadows, exploitation by con artists like Courtney is possible.
==
720 mma
| CEO won $1.7 billion in border wall contracts using the Trump-Fox feedback loop. His last wall project reportedly could collapse. |
The lesson here is simple: Don't hand out federal contracts based on who catches President Trump's eye on Fox News. Tommy Fisher received over a billion dollars in federal contracts for his construction company to build sections of Trump's wall by appealing directly to the president in appearances on Fox News. As we've previously reported in this space, Fisher made at least 11 appearances on Fox to claim that he could build the wall faster and cheaper than anyone else. It worked: He got $1.7 billion in federal contracts because Trump had seen his appearances on Fox -- including what was reportedly the largest border wall contract ever awarded. And now, a new report by ProPublica reveals that a private wall project of Fisher's shows signs of "runoff erosion" and is in danger of collapsing into the Rio Grande, with experts saying that it was built far too close to the river. |
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escondido avocado guy
https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/contractors-for-trumps-controversial-3-billion-food-aid-program-hired-a-longtime-lobbyist-to-tout-their-work/
...
At least one contract has already fallen through. Ben Holtz, a California avocado grower who lacked a USDA produce-dealing license, saw his $40 million contract canceled on May 22. The USDA didn’t give a specific reason for yanking Holtz’s deal, but the federal government generally has broad discretion to back out of contracts.
Holtz said he plans to pursue the government’s dispute resolution process to seek USDA compensation for work he’d already done. “They owe me,” he said in a text message.
A USDA spokesman said no other contracts had been terminated and the agency will audit companies to make sure they meet the contract requirements.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said the USDA should also cancel the $39 million contract awarded to a San Antonio-area wedding planner called CRE8AD8 after the San Antonio Express-News reported inconsistencies in the company’s representations.
“This contract was issued without a credible background check with a company not licensed to perform and with no work history indicating a capacity to perform at a time of urgent public need for competent delivery,” Doggett said in a May 26 letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. “CRE8AD8 was given until June 30 to complete distribution of the 750,000 boxes in a seven-state region, but to date it has apparently failed to distribute a single box.”
A spokeswoman hired by CRE8AD8 to handle media questions said she was no longer working for the company. The company’s CEO, Gregorio Palomino, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Lawmakers have also voiced concerns about how the Trump administration is implementing the $3 billion program.
“We share USDA’s goal of providing effective and timely assistance to families, farmers, and food supply businesses like food distributors,” Reps. Stacey Plaskett, Jim Costa and Marcia Fudge said in their own letter to Perdue, dated May 22. “We are concerned, however, that contracts were awarded to entities with little to no experience in agriculture or food distribution and with little capacity to meet the obligations of their award.”
The letter asks Perdue to explain how the USDA wound up picking contractors without relevant experience or proper licenses. Some organizations across the country reported difficulty working with unfamiliar distributors who won the USDA contracts. Meanwhile, well-established firms said their bids were rejected on mistaken grounds.
The Democrats also asked if the USDA thought about apportioning funding to regions based on population. Out of $1.2 billion in the program’s first round, just $46 million is going to the Northeast. Even though the region has the most coronavirus cases, it received the least money of any region except the Mountain Plains, which has almost half as many people. Maine and Alaska were left out of the program altogether. Food banks in the Northeast told ProPublica the imbalance makes it harder to find food for hard-hit communities.
The USDA said it’s evaluating how to reach “underserved” areas in future funding rounds.
The controversy mobilized some contractors who wanted to change the narrative. Apley declined to specify which companies he’s represented or what they’re paying him. He said the companies pay a membership fee to be in the coalition he represents.
While Apley is currently focused on shaping news coverage, he said direct lobbying of Congress could come later.
“Our initial interest right now is getting the story out,” he said. Lobbying “is a possibility being discussed as we proceed.”
Apley’s firm, Black Watch Agribusiness, advises companies on USDA contracting opportunities, according to its website. Apley has been a registered lobbyist on and off for two decades, including as recently as last year, according to congressional records.
Federal contracting rules prohibit using taxpayer dollars on lobbying or political expenses. Contractors are, however, free to use their own funds to lobby, and routinely do.
Trump, his daughter Ivanka and Perdue have personally praised the program. “USDA’s Farmers to Families Food Box Program is an example of Americans helping Americans, and something we should all be proud of,” Perdue tweeted on Thursday.
==
BRITTANY KAISER: Absolutely. So, Cambridge Analytica was one of the companies under the SCL Group, Strategic Communication Laboratories. This is a company that has been around for over 25 years, and they started by using data-driven strategies in order to understand people’s psyche, how they make decisions and how they can be persuaded to take certain actions or to prevent people from taking certain actions.
AMY GOODMAN: It was a defense contractor.
BRITTANY KAISER: Originally they started in defense, yes. And once they found out how successful that was — that was actually in the Nelson Mandela election in ’93, ’94 in South Africa, they were preventing election violence for a defense contract — they realized that that was very useful in elections. And those strategies developed over two-and-a-half decades in order to no longer just do good things and good impact work, but, unfortunately, to undermine our democracies.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to a clip from the documentary The Great Hack. In this clip, the British journalist Carole Cadwalladr talks about Cambridge Analytica’s parent company SCL. We also hear the voice of former Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, who was previously a director of SCL.
CAROLE CADWALLADR: SCL started out as a military contractor, SCL Defence.
ALEXANDER NIX: We have a fairly substantial defense business. We actually train the British Army, the British Navy, the U.S. Army, U.S. Special Forces. We train NATO, the CIA, State Department, Pentagon. It’s using research to influence behavior of hostile audiences. How do you persuade 14-to-30-year-old Muslim boys not to join al-Qaeda? Essentially communication warfare.
CAROLE CADWALLADR: They had worked in Afghanistan. They had worked in Iraq. They had worked in various places in Eastern Europe. But the real game changer was they started using information warfare in elections.
ALEXANDER NIX: There’s a lot of overlap, because it’s all the same methodology.
CAROLE CADWALLADR: All of the campaigns which Cambridge Analytica/SCL did for the developing world, it was all about practicing some new technology or trick, how to persuade people, how to suppress turnout or how to increase turnout. And then, it’s like, “OK, now I’ve got the hang of it. Let’s use it in Britain and America.”
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s a clip from The Great Hack. We’re going to go to break and then come back. We’re also joined by the directors. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Stay with us.
==
==
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-trump-feedback-loop-nets-company-400-million-contract
mma
construction company won a $400 million federal contract to build a portion of wall along the U.S. border with Mexico after the firm’s Fox News-centric strategy of capturing President Donald Trump’s attention through laudatory appearances on his favorite channel overcame the Army Corps of Engineers’ reported complaints that its design did not meet requirements.
Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade toasted the success of the company, North Dakota-based Fisher Sand and Gravel, during a Tuesday morning “News by the Numbers” newsbrief. “That’s good news for them,” he added after running down the contract’s particulars.
==
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2019/12/03/business/ap-us-border-wall-fox-news-pitch.html
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rev dr
https://theintercept.com/2019/06/03/amazon-defense-department-jedi-contract/
Alex Emmons
==
mma 519
We know that Fox News has unprecedented influence on Trump's decision-making. One example this week shows just how pervasive Fox's influence is-- and how much taxpayer money could be at risk.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Trump has “alarmed” military commanders and Department of Homeland Security officials by aggressively lobbying them to grant a border wall contract to Fisher Industries, a North Dakota-based construction company whose CEO, Tommy Fisher, has regularly appeared on Fox and other conservative outlets to promote his company’s bid.
Fisher has used a Fox-centric PR strategy to directly pitch the president in hopes of obtaining a federal contract, making at least 10 appearances on Fox News and Fox Business since January 2018.
And Fox’s promotion of Fisher’s bid has not been limited to the network’s supposed “opinion” shows. The network’s flagship “news” broadcast, Special Report, ran a packaged report that essentially served as an infomercial for Fisher’s proposal. Introduced by anchor Bret Baier and reported by national correspondent William La Jeunesse, the segment featured an interview with Fisher and credulously repeated his claims that he could construct the wall “faster, better, and cheaper.”
==
catching flak on baby jails palantir, mvm
https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2018/07/11/democrats-reintroduce-disclose-act-combat-dark-money-poison/
On June 27, Democrats in both chambers of Congress reintroduced the DISCLOSE Act to provide what the lead Senate sponsor, Sheldon Whitehouse (RI-D), calls “a commonsense solution to restore transparency and accountability in our political system.”
The DISCLOSE Act of 2018 is the most recent iteration of a bill that Democrats have pushed since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, which eliminated a century-old federal ban on political spending by corporations.
The “Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections Act” (DISCLOSE) was first introduced in 2010 by Representative Chris Van Hollen and Senator Chuck Schumer. DISCLOSE passed in the House that year but a Republican filibuster threat doomed it in the Senate, despite support from 59 senators.
DISCLOSE ACT WOULD SHINE A LIGHT ON DARK MONEY
The 2018 Senate bill comes out of the gate with all Senate Democrats and both Independents supporting it. The companion legislation in the House, introduced by Congressman David Cicilline (D-RI), already has 159 cosponsors.
As things stand today, corporations and wealthy donors can make unlimited expenditures to support or oppose political candidates through super PACs, independent expenditures, and dark money groups, with much of it hidden from the public. The result is a system where billionaires and large corporations dominate the political landscape with little or no accountability. As two Princeton political scientists put it in a recent study of influence in American politics, “economic elites and organized interest groups play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence.”
The Brennan Center for Justice released a report in 2016 that found that “dark money sources often hold direct economic interests in the election outcome.” In the absence of effective disclosure laws, special interests are able to launch campaigns on policy issues and influence how people vote while hiding their stake in the outcome. “When viewers learn more about an ad’s sponsor — for instance, that it’s an out-of-state group or a group that does not report its donors — they may become not only more skeptical about the ad’s message but also more critical of the ad’s intended beneficiary,” the report concluded.
In a recent interview, Rep. Cicilline and Sen. Whitehouse spoke about the importance of the DISCLOSE Act in restoring the integrity of our democracy. “Eight out of ten” Americans do not have faith in our democratic institutions due to the influence of money-in-politics, Whitehouse said. He emphasized that Americans want to have a government that “works for the benefit of the many.”
According to Sen. Whitehouse, dark money “has been poisonous to the American democracy we cherish.” Whitehouse believes that increased transparency would encourage congressional debate about the “merits of clearing dark money out of our political system.”
“The cockroaches are everywhere. I say let’s turn on the lights,” Whitehouse said.
Common Cause, a leading nonpartisan group fighting for campaign reform, praised the proposed law as “grounded in the principle expressed by the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis that ‘sunshine is the best disinfectant.'”
The DISCLOSE Act of 2018 would mandate that organizations spending money in elections —including super PACs and tax-exempt 501(c)(4) groups — must promptly disclose their donors who have given $10,000 or more during an election cycle, and report expenditures of $10,000 or more on election ads within 24 hours. In addition, the bill includes provisions to prevent complex money webs from shielding the identities of donors.
Like the 2017 version of the bill, the 2018 DISCLOSE Act would also “ban campaign contributions and expenditures by corporations that are controlled, influenced, or owned by foreign nationals.”
In a new provision, the bill wouldrepeal controversial riders the Republicans forced through on spending bills that prevent the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) from requiring public companies to disclose their political spending to shareholders, bar the IRS from developing post-Citizens United regulations on political spending by 501(c)(4) organizations, andblock the government from requiring federal contractors to disclose their political donations.
Lastly, the bill contains a “Stand by Your Ad” provision, authored by Sen. Wyden (D-OR), requiring corporations, unions, and other organizations paying for political ads to disclose their top five funders. A similar proposal earned the support of 59 senators in 2010 but was filibustered by the Republicans.
The 2018 DISCLOSE Act is supported by numerous reform groups, including Americans for Campaign Reform, Brennan Center for Justice, Campaign Legal Center, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Democracy 21, Demos, League of Women Voters, People For the American Way, Public Citizen, and the Sunlight Foundation.
VIGOROUS OPPOSITION FROM THE RIGHT
Opponents of the DISCLOSE Act include the Institute for Free Speech (formerly known as the Center for Competitive Politics), The Heritage Foundation, Americans for Tax Reform, The American Conservative Union, CatholicVote.org, and Citizens Against Government Waste.
These groups argue that the act violates the First Amendment, but a Brennan Center analysis found that “there can be no credible doubt” that a similar 2012 version of the DISCLOSE Act was fully constitutional. As Common Cause points out, “the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected any arguments that disclosure requirements silence speech” and has continually upheld their constitutionality on the grounds that the public has a right to know who is influencing an election. Even the late Justice Antonin Scalia supported disclosure, writing in Doe v. Reed that “[r]equiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren said in an April speech that the DISCLOSE Act would expose the “billionaires [who] have been pouring unlimited, secret money into the hands of carefully picked candidates who will do their bidding.”
Those billionaires fund many of the organizations that oppose the DISCLOSE Act. The Institute for Free Speech (IFS), for example, is funded by conservative donors — such as Richard Uihlein and the Koch brothers — who support Republican candidates and may not want their donations made public.
In 2016, The Bradley Foundation gave IFS $125,000 to fight those calling for greater disclosure rules, something the Bradley Foundation claims will “chill speech,”according to documents acquired by the Center for Media and Democracy.
Rep. Cicilline argues that the lack of disclosure after Citizens United has led to more business-friendly legislation and that dark money in politics leads to “bad public policy.” “The DISCLOSE Act will bring a new level of transparency to our elections. It will ensure the American people know who is really fighting for them. It will restore public faith in our government. It will mark a major step towards fixing what’s broken in Washington,” Cicilline said.
The DISCLOSE Act is part of the Democrats’ broader plan, called “A Better Deal for Our Democracy,” aimed at fixing the federal campaign finance system, improving elections, and strengthening ethics laws.
==
https://features.propublica.org/military-pollution/military-pollution-contractors-scandal-toxic-cleanups
:{
}:
...The military is one of the country’s largest polluters, with an inventory of toxic sites on American soil that once topped 39,000. At many locations, the Pentagon has relied on contractors like U.S. Technology to assist in cleaning and restoring land, removing waste, clearing unexploded bombs, and decontaminating buildings, streams and soil. In addition to its work for Barksdale, U.S. Technology had won some 830 contracts with other military facilities — Army, Air Force, Navy and logistics bases — totaling more than $49 million, many of them to dispose of similar powders.
In taking on environmental cleanup jobs, contractors often bring needed expertise to technical tasks the Pentagon isn’t equipped to do itself. They also absorb much of the legal responsibility for disposing of military-made hazards, in some cases helping the Pentagon — at least on paper — winnow down its list of toxic liabilities.
But in outsourcing this work, the military has often struggled to provide adequate oversight to ensure that work is done competently — or is completed at all. Today, records show, some of the most dangerous cleanup work that has been entrusted to contractors remains unfinished, or worse, has been falsely pronounced complete, leaving people who live near former military sites to assume these areas are now safe.
What the EPA inspector found when he visited Barksdale was an object lesson in the system’s blind spots.
Barrels of the waste hadn’t been shipped off and recycled, but rather were stored in a garage tucked away from the facility’s main operations. Further, shipping documents suggested that what waste had been sent off the base hadn’t gone to U.S. Technology’s recycling plant in Ohio, as an Air Force official first told the EPA, but instead had gone to company warehouses in at least two other states. Storing hazardous waste without a permit — and without immediately recycling it — can be illegal.
...
:{
}:
==
==
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/02/13041/federal-contractors-osha-violators-battle-new-rules
Every day, American workers are killed and injured on the job. From explosions, electrocutions, and toxic fumes to more common falls or crushing injuries, lives are altered and families irreparably torn apart.
For too long, many corporations have taken a cavalier attitude to worker safety, but when these corporations are federal contractors paid by U.S. taxpayers, the public demands a special level of accountability.
That is why President Obama issued the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order (EO) in 2014. The order requires federal contractors to report their safety record to the federal government as a condition for receiving federal contracts. It is a good first step toward holding repeat, serious violators to account and protects more than 26 million workers or 1 in 5 in the workforce.
But some of these federal contractors are pulling out the stops, urging the Obama administration to withdraw new rules providing worker protections and using little-known trade organizations to do the dirty work for them.
Companies Use Little-Known Trade Associations to Lobby Against Accountability
Federal contractors are pushing back hard on the EO, with two trade associations leading the charge: the Professional Services Council (PSC) and the HR Policy Association (HRPA).
The PSC, with 370 member companies, calls itself "the leading advocate and resource for the federal professional and technical services industry." The HRPA represents more than 360 corporations in the U.S., many of them federal contractors, and describes itself as "the lead public policy organization of chief human resource officers."
Both associations have taken strong stands in the media, congressional testimony, and lobbying asserting that the EO is unnecessary because, according to the PSC, there is "no evidence of a widespread problem of pervasive, repeated or willful violations of labor laws by federal contractors." In HRPA's words, "The Order simply seeks to solve a problem that does not exist."
The PSC concedes that there are "instances" where contractors have violated labor laws, and some of these "may well have been intentional." But "the laws involved are so complex and challenging to execute that many companies, sometimes at the direction of the government itself, take actions that result in honest mistakes." These "honest, administrative errors," the PSC asserts, "make up the vast bulk of ‘violations.'" And existing accountability mechanisms are more than sufficient to deal with cases where there has been "nefarious intent."
Yet a closer look at the companies whose senior executives sit on PSC's and HRPA's Boards of Directors undermines these assertions. By CMD's count, at least ten firms (or their subsidiaries) whose officials sit on these boards have histories of labor law violations which would be reportable under the EO, including numerous violations that occurred even after the order was signed in July 2014.
Company Track Records Illustrate the Need for Change
Key examples of violations which would be reportable under the EO include:
DuPont (HR Policy Association Board):4 workers died after a gas leak on November 15, 2014 at its LaPorte, Texas plant. OSHA cited DuPont for 1 "Repeat" and 9 "Serious" violations and issued a fine of $99,000. A follow-up inspection in January 2015 found that DuPont continued to violate safety rules, and OSHA fined the company an additional $273,000, and found 4 "Serious," 3 "Willful," and 1 "Repeat" violations. The LaPorte violations are under contest by the company. Just months before the LaPorte accident, a chemical leak from a tanker truck exposed workers to hazardous chemicals at DuPont subsidiary DuPont Chamber Works' Deepwater, New Jersey plant. OSHA cited the company for 11 violations, including 8 "Serious" and 2 "Repeat" violations and initial penalties of $120,300. The violations are under contest by the company.
Honeywell (PSC & HR Policy Association Board): Several Honeywell Inc. production facilities have each been cited for serious violations over the last three years. At a Hopewell, VA plant, the company was cited for 7 "Serious" violations in three separate inspections. These violations are under contest by the company. The nearby Chesterfield plant was cited for 1 "Serious" violation and 9 "Other-than- Serious" violations in three separate inspections. Honeywell's Golden Valley, MN facility was cited for 6 "Serious" violations in three separate inspections. A separate Golden Valley facility owned by a Honeywell subsidiary, Honeywell Aerospace, was cited for 1 "Serious" violation, as was a facility in Chickasaw, AL owned by another Honeywell subsidiary, UOP.
BAE Systems (PSC Board):A worker drowned in an April, 2013 incident at a Mobile, AL shipyard owned by a BAE Systems subsidiary, BAE Systems Southeast Shipyard Alabama LLC, and OSHA officials cited the company for 1 "Serious" violation and a $7,000 fine. In two inspections since the incident, OSHA cited the Mobile shipyard for 3 additional "Serious" violations. Recently, in January 2015, OSHA cited BAE Systems in Norfolk, VA for 1 "Other than Serious" violation. Since 2013, another BAE subsidiary, BAE Systems Norfolk Ship Repair in Norfolk, VA was cited for 1 "Serious" violation in each of two separate inspections. Finally, another BAE subsidiary, BAE Systems Southeast Shipyard Jacksonville, in Jacksonville, FL was cited for 1 "Serious" violation in a 2014 inspection, as were other subsidiaries in Nashua, NH and Charleston, SC.
AECOM (PSC Board):An employee of an AECOM subsidiary, AECOM Technical Services Inc., was killed on March 30, 2015 when he was struck by a 1,200 foot pylon at a Sunoco site in Marcus Hook, PA, and the AECOM subsidiary was cited for 2 "Serious" violations and a $14,000 penalty, the maximum allowed. The case remains open, pending abatement of violations and penalty payment. Another AECOM subsidiary, URS Federal Technical Services, was cited for $62,900 in penalties and 18 "Serious" and 1 "Other-than-Serious" violation of multiple OSHA standards following a January, 13, 2015 inspection at a Barstow, CA facility. These violations are being contested by the company. AECOM subsidiary Cleveland Wrecking Company has been cited for multiple violations since an employee died in a 2012 accident in Bakersfield, CA in which the company was citedby CalOSHA for 1 "Serious" and 4 "Other-than-Serious" violations and fined $12,250. Subsequently, it was cited for 1 "Serious" and 2 "Other-than-Serious" citations at a site in Antioch, CA and for 2 "Other-than-Serious" citations at a site in San Diego, CA.
Fortune 500 Firms Should Have No Trouble with Compliance
It would be difficult to attribute these companies' (or their subsidiaries') histories of violations–as the PSC would have it–to difficulties complying with ‘complex' and ‘challenging to execute' labor laws: 8 of these firms are ranked on the 2015 list of "Fortune 500" companies; 7 are among 2015's top 100 federal contractors. As the White House's fact sheet on the EO makes clear, the "vast majority of federal contractors play by the rules"; however, a small and salient number do not, and their violations cannot be credibly excused as "honest, administrative errors."
Yet, despite their histories of labor law violations, these companies or their subsidiaries remain eligible for contracts under the broken federal procurement system that the new rules aim to fix.
If PSC and HRPA want to learn more about the labor rights violations of companies doing business with the federal government, they need look no further than the member companies and their subsidiaries whose officials sit on their own Boards of Directors.
Instead of complaining about "executive overreach" and "blacklisting" of "well-intentioned companies," they should be encouraging their law-breaking board members' companies or subsidiaries to clean up their act.
You can learn more about this issue at CMD's Sourcewatch.org website. See new entries for Fair Pay and Safe Work Places Executive Order, the HR Policy Association and the Professional Services Council. Look for further reporting on this topic next week and follow the hashtag #safeworkplaces.
This series on fair pay and safe workplaces is dedicated to the memory of watchdog journalist Chris Thompson of CorpWatch, who wrote the 2014 report "Subsidizing Contractor Misconduct. "If you want to encourage the White House Office of Management and Budget to take swift action to protect workers, please sign CMD’s petition here.
hgttp://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Categ
ory:Private_military_corporations
wiki
The Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) is a program administered by the US Army to provide contingency support to augment the Army force structure. The first three contracts (and all task orders under them) were awarded to a single bidder in each round of competition (KBR for the first and third contracts and DynCorp for the second contract). The fourth and current (as of 2013) contract was split between three companies (KBR, DynCorp, andFluor Corporation)with each company having the opportunity to compete for task orders.
History[edit]
In 1985, LOGCAP was established primarily to preplan for contingencies and to leverage the existing civilian resources. However, it was not until three years later before it was first used. In support of a United States Third Army mission, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) used LOGCAP to contract for the construction and maintenance of two petroleum pipelines systems in Southwest Asia.
The current task order contract concept of LOGCAP began in August 1992 when USACE awarded the first contract (LOGCAP I) to Brown and Root Services (now KBR) in August 1992 as a cost-plus-award-fee contract, which was used in December that year to support the United Nations forces in Somalia. This contract was also used to support forces in Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Hungary, Saudi Arabia, Haiti, Italy and Rwanda.
The LOGCAP contract was recompeted in late 1996, with Army Materiel Command (AMC) taking over management of the program from USACE (although USACE has retained the support requirements for the Balkans Peninsula continuously since that date). The second contract (LOGCAP II) was awarded to DynCorp in January 1997. From 1997 to 2001, DynCorp supported US forces in the Philippines, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador, East Timor, and Panama.
AMC awarded LOGCAP III, the third contract, to KBR in 2001. LOGCAP III primarily supported the Global War on Terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Djibouti, and Georgia.
However, as a result of the criticisms leveled against KBR for contract performance, AMC ended the LOGCAP III contract in 2007. The current contract (LOGCAP IV) differed greatly from its three predecessors, in that multiple contracts were awarded (to KBR, DynCorp, and Fluor), whereupon the three could compete for future task orders.
==
tom franks: co that gets bid is not lowest but are pro-gop, then give kickback to gop, related /funds? revolving door
big pharma chair demo house?
up 20x corpwatch iraq inc protof chatterjee
burn and loot (later sep from Haliburton) kpfa 3/19/23 VN eqiv mill$ to contractors; yugoslavia, in iraq there BEFORE troops
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11583
| For Immediate Release: October 20th, 2004 | Contact: | Ria Julien | ria@sevenstories.com | 212.226.8760 Pratap Chatterjee | pratap@corpwatch.org | +1-202-580-8393 | ||
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Seven Stories Publishes "Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation" "Iraq Inc. will introduce to you the entrepreneurs who really understand war profiteering and the price the rest of us will have to pay."
"A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting." -Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Guardian, UK In Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable OccupationPratap Chatterjee, managing editor of watchdog group CorpWatch, brings us the dilapidated hospitals, looted ministries, and guarded corporate enclaves that mark the plunderous road to America's liberated Iraq. Bringing together a critical mass of evidence from major media sources with an on-the-ground account of the Iraq occupation business, Chatterjee presents the most complete-to-date chronicle of the exploits of private contractors hired to reconstruct and manage Iraq. Chatterjee reveals the systemic failings of Bechtel, DynCorp, Halliburton and other war profiteers to make good to either their paymasters, the American public, or their "clients," the Iraqi public. He describes the insidious daily instances of incompetence, waste, and Iraqi humiliation that have become both the Achilles' heel of U.S. occupation architects and their contractors, as well as the key recruiting tool of the Iraqi resistance. Drawing on insights gained during his time in Washington, DC and Iraq, the author reveals the conflicting strategies of Pentagon and the State Department planners that have drawn thousands of civilians employed by these companies into a bloody no-exit scenario. | Seven Stories Publishes "Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation" "Iraq Inc. will introduce to you the entrepreneurs who really understand war profiteering and the price the rest of us will have to pay."
"A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting." -Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Guardian, UK In Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable OccupationPratap Chatterjee, managing editor of watchdog group CorpWatch, brings us the dilapidated hospitals, looted ministries, and guarded corporate enclaves that mark the plunderous road to America's liberated Iraq. Bringing together a critical mass of evidence from major media sources with an on-the-ground account of the Iraq occupation business, Chatterjee presents the most complete-to-date chronicle of the exploits of private contractors hired to reconstruct and manage Iraq. Chatterjee reveals the systemic failings of Bechtel, DynCorp, Halliburton and other war profiteers to make good to either their paymasters, the American public, or their "clients," the Iraqi public. He describes the insidious daily instances of incompetence, waste, and Iraqi humiliation that have become both the Achilles' heel of U.S. occupation architects and their contractors, as well as the key recruiting tool of the Iraqi resistance. Drawing on insights gained during his time in Washington, DC and Iraq, the author reveals the conflicting strategies of Pentagon and the State Department planners that have drawn thousands of civilians employed by these companies into a bloody no-exit scenario. | Seven Stories Publishes "Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation" "Iraq Inc. will introduce to you the entrepreneurs who really understand war profiteering and the price the rest of us will have to pay."
"A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting." -Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Guardian, UK In Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable OccupationPratap Chatterjee, managing editor of watchdog group CorpWatch, brings us the dilapidated hospitals, looted ministries, and guarded corporate enclaves that mark the plunderous road to America's liberated Iraq. Bringing together a critical mass of evidence from major media sources with an on-the-ground account of the Iraq occupation business, Chatterjee presents the most complete-to-date chronicle of the exploits of private contractors hired to reconstruct and manage Iraq. Chatterjee reveals the systemic failings of Bechtel, DynCorp, Halliburton and other war profiteers to make good to either their paymasters, the American public, or their "clients," the Iraqi public. He describes the insidious daily instances of incompetence, waste, and Iraqi humiliation that have become both the Achilles' heel of U.S. occupation architects and their contractors, as well as the key recruiting tool of the Iraqi resistance. Drawing on insights gained during his time in Washington, DC and Iraq, the author reveals the conflicting strategies of Pentagon and the State Department planners that have drawn thousands of civilians employed by these companies into a bloody no-exit scenario. | Seven Stories Publishes "Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation" "Iraq Inc. will introduce to you the entrepreneurs who really understand war profiteering and the price the rest of us will have to pay."
"A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting." -Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Guardian, UK In Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable OccupationPratap Chatterjee, managing editor of watchdog group CorpWatch, brings us the dilapidated hospitals, looted ministries, and guarded corporate enclaves that mark the plunderous road to America's liberated Iraq. Bringing together a critical mass of evidence from major media sources with an on-the-ground account of the Iraq occupation business, Chatterjee presents the most complete-to-date chronicle of the exploits of private contractors hired to reconstruct and manage Iraq. Chatterjee reveals the systemic failings of Bechtel, DynCorp, Halliburton and other war profiteers to make good to either their paymasters, the American public, or their "clients," the Iraqi public. He describes the insidious daily instances of incompetence, waste, and Iraqi humiliation that have become both the Achilles' heel of U.S. occupation architects and their contractors, as well as the key recruiting tool of the Iraqi resistance. Drawing on insights gained during his time in Washington, DC and Iraq, the author reveals the conflicting strategies of Pentagon and the State Department planners that have drawn thousands of civilians employed by these companies into a bloody no-exit scenario. | Seven Stories Publishes "Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation" "Iraq Inc. will introduce to you the entrepreneurs who really understand war profiteering and the price the rest of us will have to pay."
"A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting." -Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Guardian, UK In Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable OccupationPratap Chatterjee, managing editor of watchdog group CorpWatch, brings us the dilapidated hospitals, looted ministries, and guarded corporate enclaves that mark the plunderous road to America's liberated Iraq. Bringing together a critical mass of evidence from major media sources with an on-the-ground account of the Iraq occupation business, Chatterjee presents the most complete-to-date chronicle of the exploits of private contractors hired to reconstruct and manage Iraq. Chatterjee reveals the systemic failings of Bechtel, DynCorp, Halliburton and other war profiteers to make good to either their paymasters, the American public, or their "clients," the Iraqi public. He describes the insidious daily instances of incompetence, waste, and Iraqi humiliation that have become both the Achilles' heel of U.S. occupation architects and their contractors, as well as the key recruiting tool of the Iraqi resistance. Drawing on insights gained during his time in Washington, DC and Iraq, the author reveals the conflicting strategies of Pentagon and the State Department planners that have drawn thousands of civilians employed by these companies into a bloody no-exit scenario. | Seven Stories Publishes "Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation" "Iraq Inc. will introduce to you the entrepreneurs who really understand war profiteering and the price the rest of us will have to pay."
"A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting." -Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Guardian, UK In Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable OccupationPratap Chatterjee, managing editor of watchdog group CorpWatch, brings us the dilapidated hospitals, looted ministries, and guarded corporate enclaves that mark the plunderous road to America's liberated Iraq. Bringing together a critical mass of evidence from major media sources with an on-the-ground account of the Iraq occupation business, Chatterjee presents the most complete-to-date chronicle of the exploits of private contractors hired to reconstruct and manage Iraq. Chatterjee reveals the systemic failings of Bechtel, DynCorp, Halliburton and other war profiteers to make good to either their paymasters, the American public, or their "clients," the Iraqi public. He describes the insidious daily instances of incompetence, waste, and Iraqi humiliation that have become both the Achilles' heel of U.S. occupation architects and their contractors, as well as the key recruiting tool of the Iraqi resistance. Drawing on insights gained during his time in Washington, DC and Iraq, the author reveals the conflicting strategies of Pentagon and the State Department planners that have drawn thousands of civilians employed by these companies into a bloody no-exit scenario. | Seven Stories Publishes "Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation" "Iraq Inc. will introduce to you the entrepreneurs who really understand war profiteering and the price the rest of us will have to pay."
"A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting." -Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Guardian, UK In Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable OccupationPratap Chatterjee, managing editor of watchdog group CorpWatch, brings us the dilapidated hospitals, looted ministries, and guarded corporate enclaves that mark the plunderous road to America's liberated Iraq. Bringing together a critical mass of evidence from major media sources with an on-the-ground account of the Iraq occupation business, Chatterjee presents the most complete-to-date chronicle of the exploits of private contractors hired to reconstruct and manage Iraq. Chatterjee reveals the systemic failings of Bechtel, DynCorp, Halliburton and other war profiteers to make good to either their paymasters, the American public, or their "clients," the Iraqi public. He describes the insidious daily instances of incompetence, waste, and Iraqi humiliation that have become both the Achilles' heel of U.S. occupation architects and their contractors, as well as the key recruiting tool of the Iraqi resistance. Drawing on insights gained during his time in Washington, DC and Iraq, the author reveals the conflicting strategies of Pentagon and the State Department planners that have drawn thousands of civilians employed by these companies into a bloody no-exit scenario. | Seven Stories Publishes "Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation" "Iraq Inc. will introduce to you the entrepreneurs who really understand war profiteering and the price the rest of us will have to pay."
"A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting." -Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Guardian, UK In Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable OccupationPratap Chatterjee, managing editor of watchdog group CorpWatch, brings us the dilapidated hospitals, looted ministries, and guarded corporate enclaves that mark the plunderous road to America's liberated Iraq. Bringing together a critical mass of evidence from major media sources with an on-the-ground account of the Iraq occupation business, Chatterjee presents the most complete-to-date chronicle of the exploits of private contractors hired to reconstruct and manage Iraq. Chatterjee reveals the systemic failings of Bechtel, DynCorp, Halliburton and other war profiteers to make good to either their paymasters, the American public, or their "clients," the Iraqi public. He describes the insidious daily instances of incompetence, waste, and Iraqi humiliation that have become both the Achilles' heel of U.S. occupation architects and their contractors, as well as the key recruiting tool of the Iraqi resistance. Drawing on insights gained during his time in Washington, DC and Iraq, the author reveals the conflicting strategies of Pentagon and the State Department planners that have drawn thousands of civilians employed by these companies into a bloody no-exit scenario. | Seven Stories Publishes "Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation" "Iraq Inc. will introduce to you the entrepreneurs who really understand war profiteering and the price the rest of us will have to pay."
"A powerful combination of investigative research and on-the-ground reporting." -Naomi Klein, author No Logo, columnist The Guardian, UK In Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable OccupationPratap Chatterjee, managing editor of watchdog group CorpWatch, brings us the dilapidated hospitals, looted ministries, and guarded corporate enclaves that mark the plunderous road to America's liberated Iraq. Bringing together a critical mass of evidence from major media sources with an on-the-ground account of the Iraq occupation business, Chatterjee presents the most complete-to-date chronicle of the exploits of private contractors hired to reconstruct and manage Iraq. Chatterjee reveals the systemic failings of Bechtel, DynCorp, Halliburton and other war profiteers to make good to either their paymasters, the American public, or their "clients," the Iraqi public. He describes the insidious daily instances of incompetence, waste, and Iraqi humiliation that have become both the Achilles' heel of U.S. occupation architects and their contractors, as well as the key recruiting tool of the Iraqi resistance. Drawing on insights gained during his time in Washington, DC and Iraq, the author reveals the conflicting strategies of Pentagon and the State Department planners that have drawn thousands of civilians employed by these companies into a bloody no-exit scenario. |
---
cf Shadow Elite: Janine Wedel
http://janinewedel.info/shadowelite.html
MISCONDUCT
Top 100 Contractors
Contractor
Federal Contract $
(FY2010)
Instances of Misconduct
(Since 1995)
Misconduct $
(Since 1995)
1.
Lockheed Martin
$34367.4m
58
$ 606.0m
2.
Boeing Company
$19366.6m
44
$1005.0m
3.
Northrop Grumman
$15522.7m
35
$ 850.7m
4.
General Dynamics
$14908.8m
13
$
78.5m
5.
Raytheon Company
$14881.8m
22
$ 479.2m
6.
L-3 Communications
$7622.9m
7
$
43.6m
7.
United Technologies Corporation
$7336.4m
16
$ 390.2m
8.
Oshkosh Truck Corporation
$7198.4m
0
$
0.0m
9.
SAIC
$6861.6m
13
$ 533.3m
10.
BAE Systems
$6620.2m
12
$ 588.2m
11.
McKesson
$4600.9m
15
$1460.5m
12.
Computer Sciences Corporation
$4333.5m
7
$
43.1m
13.
Bechtel Corporation
$3936.9m
19
$ 378.3m
14.
URS Corporation
$3776.6m
9
$
63.5m
15.
KBR
$3631.1m
27
$ 132.7m
16.
Humana
$3246.6m
13
$ 133.4m
17.
Health Net, Inc.
$3224.4m
22
$ 690.7m
18.
Harris Corporation
$3205.7m
3
$
1.6m
19.
General Electric
$3063.6m
44
$ 278.3m
20.
Triwest Healthcare Alliance Company
$2713.3m
1
$
10.0m
21.
ITT Industries
$2703.7m
6
$ 109.7m
22.
Government of Canada (CCC)
$2674.5m
1
$
6.0m
23.
Cerberus Capital Management, L.P.
$2612.0m
2
$
0.2m
24.
Honeywell International Inc.
$2546.0m
41
$ 703.5m
25.
CACI International, Inc.
$2526.2m
2
$
0.1m
26.
Bell Boeing Joint Program
$2497.3m
0
$
0.0m
27.
Battelle Memorial Institute
$2255.2m
3
$
0.6m
28.
Los Alamos National Security LLC
$2201.6m
1
$
1.0m
29.
Booz Allen Hamilton
$2180.1m
3
$
3.8m
30.
Textron, Inc.
$2140.4m
14
$ 133.8m
31.
Supreme Group Holding SARL
$2121.3m
0
$
0.0m
32.
DynCorp International Inc.
$2029.3m
10
$
19.8m
33.
Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc.
$1960.6m
2
$
37.5m
...
http://www.contractormisconduct.org/index.cfm
Pages in category "Private military corporations"
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