Susan Collins Stripped Whistleblower Protection from Stimulus Bill So GOP Can Blame Dems Later
By Susie Madrak Thursday Feb 12, 2009 3:00pm
(I totally stole this from The General...)
Via TPMMuckraker: Gotta love those "centrists"!
Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine GOP dealmaker who's been in the limelight this week for helping to pass a watered down stimulus, has been talking a good game about the need to avoid wasting taxpayer money. But it looks like Collins also worked today to strip from the final bill a measure that's crucial to exposing that waste.
Here's what happened:
The House stimulus bill contained a provision designed to protect federal whistleblowers. Currently, those protections are shockingly weak. According to the Project On Government Oversight, whistleblowers who are fired or demoted can file a complaint with a government board -- but over the last eight years, that board has ruled in favor of whistleblowers only twice in 55 cases.
More to the point, the protections were designed to encourage federal workers to point out cases where taxpayer money is subject to waste, fraud, or abuse -- a legitimate concern when Congress spends $800 billion, and one that centrists and Republicans have been particularly exercised about.
Yesterday, 20 members of the House, from both parties, yesterday sent a letter to House negotiators urging them to ensure that the protections remained.
But, according to a person following the bill closely, Collins used today's conference committee to drastically water down the measure, citing national security concerns as the reason for her opposition. In the end, the protections were so weakened that House negotiators balked, and the result was that the entire amendment was removed.
According to the person following the bill, Collins was the "central roadblock" to passing the protections.
But wait, here's the good part!
So when, in the coming months, conservatives start jumping up and down over the fact that money from the stimulus bill is being wasted, as they surely will, it's worth remembering that a key measure designed to help expose that waste was removed from taken out of the bill -- and by a senator said to be a champion of fiscal discipline.
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want real change in dc...make every bill stand on its own
have a seperate whistle blower bill
let the repukes fight it on the floor
do the same with healtcare, research and development, education
stop all of these omnibus bills
on the floor, and the dems cave in every single one of them, making them either useless or dropping them right out.
What then?
Exactly, one bill at a time. Let them stand on the merits.
I agree, at least in a case like this.
With the stimulus package, you have to get the money into the system FAST if it's going to work at all. So, I wouldn't advocate trying to push the spending and tax cutting through Congress piecemeal.
But when it comes to individual pieces of legislation that make government more transparent, there's no reason NOT to put those through one at a time, and just DARE people to vote against them.
Putting waste-whistle-blower-protection legislation before Congress as a stand alone bill makes perfect sense. This is something that can pass on its own merits, and doesn't need to be snuck through as part of an omnibus bill.
Collinses from Mississippi to Miami have a well-deserved reputation for being Mafia, including Dixie Mafia. They were involved with the Dutch Schultz family in the 1920's, involved with a Dixie Mafia hit-man from 1960 through the present, and if the Maine bunch is in the Maine Thomases, you will find their family in property-theft scams.
Some are my family in-laws, others are distant cousins, so I'm reporting from the bad end of real life, as usual.
As long as Collinses, spouses, kin can get away with it, there will be no free-standing whistleblower protection bill, either. Too many FBI, ATF, and HUD employees might head for the netroots and MSM if they had protection.
...douchebaggery?
No. This is what they mean by a superb, stealth plan by Democrats to clobber the remaining Republican Senators from the north east in the 2010 mid-terms, by forcing them to show their true colors. Taking the whistle-blower provisions out doesn't hurt them, because they can easily pass on their own. But it certainly hurts anybody who tried to get them removed.
she's got to hide.
Probably her penis.
she is a reptile, a female reptile.
Like Diana in "V"?
Edited: Didn't really make any sense... Coffee no substitute for actual sleep -_-
PS - Collins needs to flush her head down the toilet.
Boy does our new President have a tough road ahead.
We all know you've got the hots for Susan Collins. It stems from your childhood desire to shagg Miss Hathaway, from The Beverly Hillbillies.
Now that's funny. And I'd do Ms. Hathaway over Grannie.
Why didn't the people of Maine toss her ass out when they had the chance?
Hillary threw the kitchen sink at President Obama during the campaign. Now the republicans are trying to throw the bath tub and the toilet at him. Thank goodness he is calm and cool and willing to fight for what he wants.
The whistleblower law deserves its own bill and floor discussion. I don't think there is a person in the country who would not support it,
And while the disgusting Republicans try to stab Obama through his heart(country be damned) at every fucking turn, we can count on "progressives" to keep the President's feet to the fire. Lol.
Here's mine- "I just heard you managed to make sure that there is no whistle blower protections. I hope it's not true. There are ways to ensure that national security is protected while still protecting whistle blowers. Are you against finding out about government abuse of taxpayers' money?
I live in California but will now donate to any of your future opponents, or will donate to what I'm sure will be an embarrassing MoveOn advertisement."
Here's where you can contact Sen. Collins-
http://collins.senate.gov/
when they don't want the people to find out they have broken the Law is, That is a "National Security Issue" sure it is bitch! just like bush had to wire tap Americans. Just like when bush told people to turn in the guy next door. But when it comes to people like you, Its game over, you cant do that.
Thanks Maine, for sending this flaming right wing turd back to the sentate. Way to go!
Looks like Congress will have to get busy writing another bill... an oversight bill that protects the whistle blower and punishes the wrongdoer.
Dig this!
"Collins used today's conference committee to drastically water down the measure, citing national security concerns as the reason for her opposition."
"According to the person following the bill, Collins was the 'central roadblock' to passing the protections."
Collins watered down the measure? Collins blocked the provision? WTF gives here? The Republicans steamrolled Democrats for years with smaller majorities than the Democrats now have. Collins simply could not have done what is claimed without considerable complicity by or acquiescence from Democrats.
Sen. Susan Collins is another
reason why we get censured for
using the "c" word.
I was not aware of her heritage, interesting and fairly accurate I would say.
What are you folks doing up there in "Vacationland "? :-)
At least it seems you folks are breaking her... Put the lobsters down and step away slowly...:-P
PS. Does she live anywhere near "Kennebunkport"?
I don't know where to post this so I'll just post it here.
The site has some massive memory leaks on it.
Just open up a browser and the Windows Task Manager at the same time and you can see the "Mem Usage" and "VM Size" grow beyond reason.
Is varies depending on the content and whether you are on the main page or a comment section. I can't nail it down specifically but it is a problem. A typical iexplore.exe might start and run with 70-70Mb of memory but lately when I'm on the site for a while, say an hour or so, I have seen things start to bog down and the mem usage go up to 1Gb. All I have to do is close the browser and start again but it's something someone over there should look at.
It seems that going back and forth between the main page and the comment sections causes the problem. Rather than using the existing allocated memory to load the page, it seems to allocate more memory each time.
The Viper of Maine strikes again.
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The left in this country must take to the streets like our European comrades.How any one who claims to be progressive can sit idly by while the Gangsters on Wall Street rob us blind, is beyond me.So brazen are they that they're doing it in public and telling us how much they're going to steal.The democrats, being one of the two bourgeois parties, are complicit in this theft.
Marx:
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 1789-1814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue.
as a liberal person i have no interest taking to the streets and would rather see us win this using the law and reason. history probably frowns on this as rights are not really given without a fight it seems but if we are evolving shouldn't we at least attempt to right these wrongs in a way which guarantees our survival. the death and destruction weighs far too heavy, even though i am aware of the mountain of sh*t these corporate right wing authoritarians have laid before us. call me a wimp as i am and can do crazy escape manoeuvers like a rabbit if i have to...but let us seek a true transformative response.
is pissing off the public a national security concern? These politicos are pulling this "national security" stuff to hide things the average American would not like. Keeping the country from a "revolution" is not "national security". The only security concern is these politician's concern for their own job and their "security". Vote them all out and start over. I'm tired of this shit!
Let's get her out of the Senate as well as Fiendstien and Ben Nelson.
Too late. She's there for another six years.
It would be better for members of the Democratic party to start introducing individual bills of legislation that are not tied to omnibus bills, and then make noise until they get up-or-down votes.
That will likely never happen, though. The Democrats are too cowed by fear that "Joe the Plunger" will rise up and vote them out if they don't act like good little Republicans. Any stance taken only half-way guarantees ineffective results. It doesn't work in business or anywhere else in life. If you want success, you have to go for it, flat out. Say what you want and fight like hell for it, or it'll never happen.
At some point, Democrats may realize that they have the freakin' majority. Unfortunately, by the time they do, they will have lost it because they're too afraid to use it.
"Stifle the truth, burn the books and time will tell"...
[Truth_Critic] :-)
"Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth."
[Simone de Beauvoir]
Senator Collins stripping whistle blower protection from the Stimulus Bill and she calls herself a centrist moderate? Sure she is, and if she believes that Trent Lott and Thad Cochran are two true hero's of the center, and she is a champion of fiscal discipline, she has NO credibility far as I am concerned
Believe me we tried to lose Collins, who ran on term limits 12 years ago when it was popular with Maine Republicans, but no Republican in the state had a term limit problem with one of their own 12 years later.
Tom Allen was her perfect replacement for '08 but Maine is like New York state with a big northern Republican up state and Collins is from "the county",(read Aroostook County, top of Maine.)
This bill has become a huge pile of crap yet the democrats just keep on moving it through gaining more and more stink along the way.
We don't need any bill we need a bill that will work. I'll say that again we don't need a spending package for the sake of a spending package; we need a plan that will work. It's down to what 114 billion in infran spending and even more tax cuts. TAX CUTS the same thing that help to get us into this mess now are double what the infrastructure spending is.
The democrats need to grow a pair and veto or block the bill Period. Stop pushing through something that will hurt more then it will help. A bill with a few good points and a load of crap is something we can’t afford at this time.
I have a better idea. Let's put the whistle-blower protection legislation before the House as a separate bill, and just SEE who DARES to vote against it! I think it's better to do it that way. It's good policy AND good politics.
What does Senator Collins know about National Security that all the other congress-persons, and the Administration, and the President, *don't* know? Spooky!
I didn't see any Democrats busting a nut to put it back in.
I guess they'll have an excuse not to listen to Sibel Edmonds now. They suck.
Maybe Collins was the "wicked witch of the East" O'Reilly spoke of.
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As a "Federally Protected Whistleblower" (Ha, Ha, Ha!), I can assure you that for at least the last twenty years, enforcement of existing WPA law has been a joke for those who try to do the right thing, report fraud, waste & abuse or particpate in protected disclosures especially within the Department of Defense and most every other government agency.
When you allow the leaders of any agency to investigate themselves, guess who pays the price for blowing the whistle? Even if you win the short term battles and some corrupt soul is fired or prosecuted,...the agency still wants you out and will use any and all powers at their disposal to reprise and punish you.....and they have hundreds of years of practice excuting petty beaucratic loopholes to punish you over a very long period of time.
Regards,
Oguillory
or the fox watching the hen house?
Im positive the government has our interests in mind. Laughable isnt it?
We need catchy words and phrases aimed directly at the GOP
obstructionists and naysayers who have deliberately placed FAILURE at the top
of their lists. These words and phrases should be used now and whenever necessary.
Frequent use means our lazy MSM will eventually pick up on them and use them too.
Currently the word most feared by the GOP is BUSH. Republicans hope Americans
forget about our country's WORST PRESIDENT. WE CAN'T LET THEM!
Isn't the Stimulus Package really the BUSH BAILOUT LEGACY, PART ONE?
My early coffee kick hasn't arrived but surely others are up and running.
Collins has chosen to play games. Someone must have a catchy nickname for
her.
When some wasteful spending is found after the Stimulus Package
has passed, should we call it the COLLINS CONSEQUENCE?
Bring it right back to her....................................
She's from mainessippi??? does that mean she humps her sister on a pile of lobster shells??
... wouldn't this quote from the GAP director been useful in this article? Maybe it isn't align with the agenda here:
Tom Devine, legal director for the Government Accountability Project, said on Tuesday that the legislation includes all the core principles that would fill in the gaps of the 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act, but added that there are still some "rough spots" that would have to be ironed out for the measure to be successful. For example, he said, the bill would not protect national security disclosures made to members of Congress. Instead, the measure only would protect national security disclosures made to agency general counsels and ombudsmen, he said."There are a number of rough edges to the legislation that need to be fine-tuned," Devine said. "If the technical problems are resolved, the House legislation would be the global gold standard for freedom of speech by government workers."
"Reward your friends and punish your enemies."
The Republicans have shown that "bipartisanship" is meaningless. Democrats need to do everything they can to get rid of those corrupt, evil bastards once and for all.
......if you really want to take a bite out of both corporate and government corruption......the taxpayer should fund an entirely seperate Legal Guild, filled with lawyers who only represent Whistleblowers. Not only are the law and regulations different and complicated depending on for whom you work, but the government sets up all of these laws and regulations, then they employ an army of lawyers to fight the whistleblower when fraud, waste and abuse is reported. Often, they actually get to invetsigate themselves and the average employee cannot afford legal representation.....so they shut up or go away........and then even if they do report it..... in a government agency like DOD, they get to determine if you were actually reprised against for making protected disclosures....so lets make a JAG type office in which their only objective is to represent their clients with passion and a desire to really uncover wrong-doing, not simply cover it up and stomp the messenger into submission or resignation....
Regards,
Oguillory
Just how did the republicans past legislature ,, that they did in the past 2 years,,, When they were the minority in the house and senate!
Just as the democrat leaders stated when the took control of the house , senate and presidency in 2008 the left has to go...
We will not govern from the left but from the center... which is really the center right and just were their republicans friends wish to be..
Anytime any person or group of persons expose the lies , BS or criminal crimes of the democrats or our government they always group them in the left and say they are extreme..
Then if most of the left's policies are extreme , our forefathers were extreme , when they form the constitution , bill of rights and laws for this country... Because this is what the so-called left is trying to do preserve the constitution , laws and our country so it will still be run by the citizens of this country and not these criminal corporate thugs.. They are trying to preserve the laws and honor of our nation and that is a good thing , not as the democratic leaders state bad for our country...
I just love to know who has the ear of Obama now , because he is starting to sound like a different person...
I thought you might be interested in reading a letter from Halliburton whistleblower Bunny Greenhouse urging all Americans to continue the fight for greater oversight and accountability. You can read Bunny's letter and help her protect taxpayer dollars by visiting
http://capwiz.com/whistleblowers/issues/alert...
Halliburton whistleblower Bunny Greenhouse wrote a new letter in response to Congress cutting whistleblower protections for federal employees from the final version of the stimulus bill. You can read the letter at http://capwiz.com/whistleblowers/issues/alert...
sign the new petition at www.whistleblowers.org.
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