This is great. I'm always happy to see government contractors held to the same letter of the law as everyone else. Actual consequences are still all too rare for them:

Federal officials on Friday suspended one of the nation's largest government contractors from receiving new work, alleging that the Northern Virginia company inappropriately went through other firms to gain access to contracts set aside for small companies.

The U.S. Small Business Administration's action imperils hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for GTSI Corp., a top-50 contractor that has relied on the Pentagon and the rest of the federal government for more than 90 percent of its sales in recent years.

At issue is work GTSI did as a subcontractor for small businesses serving as the prime contractors on government contracts.

"There is evidence that GTSI's prime contractors had little to no involvement in the performance of contracts, in direct contravention of all applicable laws and regulations regarding the award of small business contracts," an SBA official wrote in a letter to GTSI's chief executive, Scott W. Friedlander. "The evidence shows that GTSI was an active participant in a scheme that resulted in contracts set-aside for small businesses being awarded to ineligible contractors."

[...] "It's the first time in decades that the government has completely suspended a significant player, a legitimate top-tier contractor," said Steven Schooner, a contracting law professor at George Washington University. "It puts everybody on notice."

This is not satire. This is not a joke. This is actually happening in Afghanistan. And we are paying billions of dollars to enable this travesty:

For several years, Afghan police recruits under the tutelage of private U.S. government contractors couldn't understand why their marksmanship never improved.

The answer became clear earlier this year. Italian contractors also helping to train Afghan volunteers showed them that the sights on their AK-47s and M-16s had never been adjusted.

"We're paying somebody to teach these people to shoot these weapons, and nobody ever bothered to check their sights?" Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said, after relating that story at a hearing Thursday.

To McCaskill, who chaired the hearing of the Senate Contracting Oversight panel, it illustrated why the U.S. has spent more than $6 billion on private contractors, but the police-training program remains rife with problems.

"It is an unbelievable, incompetent story of contracts," she said. "For eight years we have been supposed training the police in Afghanistan. We've flushed $6 billion."

Improving and expanding the 90,000-man Afghan National Police to maintain stability and protect the population is crucial to the Obama administration's plan to begin reducing the American military presence in July 2011.

But the training contracts have been plagued by mismanagement. Investigations by the Government Accounting Office and the inspector generals from the Departments of State and Defense have sharply criticized both the contractors and the government oversight. They detailed a lack of supervision and controls over spending, among other failures.

"Just about everything that could go wrong here has gone wrong," Defense Department Inspector General Gordon Heddell told the subcommittee...read on

How embarrassing. WTF is Blackwater, I mean Xe, doing getting cash out of the government? That's what happens when Republicans start wars. They outsource the troops and then you're stuck with contractors because we don't have the manpower to do the job. Getting out of there should be our highest priority. Exiting out of Iraq and Afghanistan would be awesome for so many reasons but one that's way down the list is that I will make it my mission to never let Blackwater receive a nickel of our money again.

Why aren't the teabaggers complaining that $6 billion of our tax money was spent on this war?

And for all of our tax dollars, the Afghanistan soldiers are woefully inadequate. It would appear that Marines do not like going into battle with them.

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Rookie Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) passed an amendment to a defense bill this week that would withhold government contracts from organizations like KBR if they restrict employees from taking rape and sexual assault cases to court.

Thirty Republican senators voted against Al Franken's amendment, thus showing their support for gang rape by government contractors. And may I say, I'm not surprised:

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. She was detained in a shipping container for at least 24 hours without food, water, or a bed, and “warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.” (Jones was not an isolated case.) Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration.

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR “if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court.” Speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, Franken said:

The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law … And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. … The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen.

On the Senate floor, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) spoke against the amendment, calling it “a political attack directed at Halliburton.” Franken responded, “This amendment does not single out a single contractor. This amendment would defund any contractor that refuses to give a victim of rape their day in court.”

In the end, Franken won the debate. His amendment passed by a 68-30 vote, earning the support of 10 Republican senators including that of newly-minted Florida Sen. George LeMieux. “He did what a senator should do, which was he was working it,” LeMieux said in praise of Franken. “He was working for his amendment.”

Appearing with Franken after the vote, an elated Jones expressed her deep appreciation. “It means the world to me,” she said of the amendment’s passage. “It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it.”

It's probably not news to you that BushCo essentially outsourced the government, getting in return much higher costs - and much lower quality. But then, government outsourcing was never meant to be efficient, except as a way of funneling money to friends and contributors:

The U.S. Special Operations Command, which has Army Special Forces units worldwide, has been criticized by the Pentagon inspector general for not providing adequate oversight of $1.7 billion in logistic support contracts at 20 locations and for allowing contractors to perform what are considered "inherently government functions."

Federal government rules and regulations prohibit the hiring of contractors who perform actions reserved for government employees, yet a Special Operations Command unit managing the contract with L-3 Communications Integrated Systems permitted contractor approval of such matters as overtime and acceptably completed work, according to a report by the Pentagon inspector general released this week.

The contracts called for L-3 Communications to provide logistic support for Special Forces equipment including repair, maintenance and support that between 2003 and 2008 involved 2,148 separate tasks. The Special Operations Forces Support Activity, which administered the contract, designated one government employee to be the contracting officer for the contract. But the IG report noted that "it is not feasible for one individual to effectively oversee 2,148 task orders requiring surveillance in 20 locations."

No L-3 Communications official was available to comment on the report.

The report pointed out that no quality-assurance plan was developed for tasks that typically would guide contracting officers in determining whether contracting tasks were being completed as required. Instead, the IG report said, the Special Operations Forces unit relied on complaints from those receiving the contractor services.

One example cited by the IG report was chipping and flaking paint on six helicopters because of poor preparation before painting. "These aircraft needed to be repainted and, therefore, reduced the warfighter's ability to support military operations as scheduled," according to the report. The contractor charged the government an additional $225,000 to repaint the aircraft.

I've been receiving statements and videos from all sorts of progressive groups and individuals responding to Bush's 2008 State of the Union speech. Here are two reactions that I thought were particularly good:

DMI's Andrea Batista Schlesinger analyzes the SOTU and finds that once again, Bush fails the middle class:

And David Swanson caught something that no one else appears to have:

On the day of the State of the Union, apparently hoping nobody would notice, President George W. Bush posted a statement on the White House website announcing his intention to violate major sections of the Defense Authorization bill that he just signed into law.[..]

He's decided to close the office that handles Freedom of Information requests from Congress. He's left Blackwater free but jailed citizens who reenact its crimes. He's rewritten government reports on global warming. He's blocked his Justice Departments investigation of political hirings and firings, while the former governor of Alabama begins his eighth month as a political prisoner. He's delivered a State of the Union address packed with the same contemptuous lies as last year's, and announced the seizure of new powers (which Congress greeted with applause). And then there's the latest signing statement.

This statement announces in the by now familiar coded language of the "unitary executive" Bush's intention to violate four key sections of a bill he is simultaneously making "law."

CQ Today sums up these sections as follows:

"One such provision sets up a commission to probe contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan. Another expands protections for whistleblowers who work for government contractors. A third requires that U.S. intelligence agencies promptly respond to congressional requests for documents. And a fourth bars funding for permanent bases in Iraq and for any action that exercises U.S. control over Iraq’s oil money."

See, Andrea, I don't think you carried it far enough. Bush didn't just fail the middle class. Bush has failed all of us.

Matthew Yglesias: Government contractors exploded to unprecedented levels under G-Dub and the late, unlamented GOP congress. While flagrant cases of fraud and waste make headlines, concerns go beyond ouitright wrongdoing.

Newsie8200's Penndit: Media News Report

TPMmuckraker: The Washington Post reports on the administration's purge of federal prosecutors this morning and finds that the call for the move came, shockingly, from outside the Justice Department

10 Zen Monkeys: On Friday, Arizona police arrested a 64-year-old man — a fugitive since 2001 in a bizarre war that mixes free speech, copyright law, and alleged threats against the Church of Scientology.

Welcome to Pottersville: Assclowns of the Week

The Daily Background: Why is Newsweek censoring it's George Clooney interview from Americans

Georgia prevents cities from raising wages

Move Left

When a city in Georgia decides which company to hire for work, it can consider many things.

However, whether the company pays its workers a decent wage isn't one of them.

From David Sirota:

Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a law barring "any city from seeking to require their contractors to pay higher minimum wages to employees than the $5.15 per hour federal standard."
Atlanta had been considering requiring a $10.15 "living wage" for government contractors, but that was apparently unacceptable to Big Business - so they bought this wretched piece of legislation, meaning Georgia taxpayers have to continue subsidizing companies that provide poverty-level wages.

It would be one thing for the state to try to help workers by setting a floor for workers' rights in city contracting.
It's another thing for the state to set a ceiling on workers' rights, which is the purpose of this legislation.

The law says, "no local government entity may through its purchasing or contracting procedures seek to control or affect the wages or employment benefits provided by its vendors."

Gee, wouldn't want a city to try to improve wages and benefits.

Better that cities just seek the lowest bid, and depress wages and benefits.

This awful bill was passed by a Democratic House and Republican Senate, and signed by a Republican governor.

Bipartisan greed-gone-wild.

The Forceful Men Of FORCE Ministries    A Tiny Revolution

Atlanta had been considering requiring a $10.15 "living wage" for government contractors, but that was apparently unacceptable to Big Business - so they bought this wretched piece of legislation, meaning Georgia taxpayers have to continue subsidizing companies that provide poverty-level wages. It would be one thing for the state to try to help workers by setting a floor for workers' rights in city contracting.

It's another thing for the state to set a ceiling on workers' rights, which is the purpose of this legislation.

The law says, "no local government entity may through its purchasing or contracting procedures seek to control or affect the wages or employment benefits provided by its vendors."

Gee, wouldn't want a city to try to improve wages and benefits.

Better that cities just seek the lowest bid, and depress wages and benefits.

This awful bill was passed by a Democratic House and Republican Senate, and signed by a Republican governor.

Bipartisan greed-gone-wild.