US Department of Agriculture monitors meat safety under a system that allows meat processors to design their own food safety plans

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The current system lacks coordination, uniformity and authority. It is understaffed and focused too much on fixing problems instead of preventing them.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture monitors meat safety under a system that allows meat processors to design their own food safety plans. Many in the meat industry have strict guidelines and test meat for pathogens at various stages in the butchering process, but there is no federal requirement for such tests, according to the American Meat Institute.

USDA inspectors are monitoring compliance with these company-written plans, but the USDA cannot mandate changes in the plans, says Patty Lovera, assistant director of the Washington-based food-safety group, Food and Water Watch.

USDA inspectors are thinly spread. One inspector was assigned to the Topps Meat Co., which claimed to produce more hamburger patties than any other U.S. plant until it went out of business earlier this month. As you probably remember, Topps folded after the recall of about 22 million pounds of its meat.

The recall was not ordered by the USDA. The federal regulatory agency doesn't have the authority to order a recall. The company announced the recall 18 days after initial tests showed contamination with the potentially deadly E.coli bacteria.

The federal inspector assigned to Topps didn't find the E.coli contamination. That discovery was made after dozens of people became ill and the pathogen was traced to Topps.

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Rumsfeld, the Blackwater Mercenary Friend

Rumsfeld’s revenge.

A story in tomorrow’s Washington Post reports that early in 2004, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld became angry that the Pentagon was losing control over reconstruction efforts in Iraq. In return, he refused to provide military security for diplomats, forcing the State Department to rush to Blackwater:

The next year, as the United States prepared to return sovereignty to the Iraqis and the State Department began planning an embassy in Baghdad, Rumsfeld lost a bid to retain control over the full U.S. effort, including billions of dollars in reconstruction funds. A new executive order, signed in January 2004, gave State authority over all but military operations. Rumsfeld’s revenge, at least in the view of many State officials, was to withdraw all but minimal assistance for diplomatic security.

“It was the view of Donald Rumsfeld and [then-Deputy Defense Secretary] Paul Wolfowitz that this wasn’t their problem,” said a former senior State Department official. Meetings to negotiate an official memorandum of understanding between State and Defense during the spring of 2004 broke up in shouting matches over issues such as their respective levels of patriotism and whether the military would provide mortuary services for slain diplomats. […]

State chose the most expedient solution: Take over the Pentagon’s personal security contract with Blackwater and extend it for a year.

Privatization Of America's Roads Not in Public Interest.

Halliburton Sunday said third-quarter net profit rose 19 percent, helped by a tax benefit and new international contracts

War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says

The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday.

Following Minnesota Bridge Collapse, New Scrutiny for Nation’s Ever-Privatizing Roads

n the wake of Wednesday's fatal bridge collapse over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, the condition of the nation's highway system is coming under increased scrutiny. In 1990 the U.S. government rated the Minneapolis Bridge as structurally deficient and possibly in need of replacement. That rating was contained in the Department of Transportation's National Bridge Inventory database. More than 70,000 bridges across the country have also been rated structurally deficient. The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates it would take nearly $190 billion to fix these bridges over the next two decades.

In Minnesota, many residents have begun questioning the spending priorities of the state and nation. Nick Coleman of the Star Tribune wrote a column yesterday titled "Public Anger Will Follow Our Sorrow." He points out that the motto of Governor Tim Pawlenty has been "No New Taxes." Last spring Pawlenty vetoed a five cent gas tax increase – the first in twenty years – that would have produced millions of dollars in revenue to help fix roads. Nick Coleman wrote: "At the federal level, the parsimony is worse, and so is the negligence. A trillion spent in Iraq, while schools crumble, there aren't enough cops on the street and bridges decay while our leaders cross their fingers and ignore the rising chances of disaster."

On the national level, the highway trust fund is about to go broke. When President Bush took office the fund had a $23 billion surplus, but it is expected to be running a deficit by next year in part because Bush killed an increase in gas taxes two years ago.

The columnist Jim Hightower recently accused the government of deliberately defunding these vital infrastructure projects in an effort to open the door to privatization. Investment firms including Goldman Sachs, the Carlyle Group, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley are forming large funds to purchase publicly owned infrastructure projects.

And the privatization of the nation's roads has already begun. In Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels has leased the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road to a foreign consortium from Spain and Australia for $3.85 billion over the next seventy-five years. By one calculation, the Toll Road will generate $11 billion over the life of the lease. Indiana's governor Mitch Daniels has been nicknamed Mr. Privatize by some for his willingness to sell off public assets. Before coming to Indiana, Daniels served as the President Bush's White House budget director. And Indiana is not alone. In Illinois, officials signed a 99-year, $1.8 billion lease to hand over the Chicago Skyway.

Government's Largest Contract with Private Industry

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According to AOPA, one of the most politically influential pilot organizations, many pilots have experienced safety-compromising problems ranging from extremely long hold times to inaccurate weather information. These problems are serious and deserve the attention of AOPA, FAA Administrator Marian Blakely and the aviation subcommittees in Congress, all of whom supported the privatization of the flight service system more than three years ago. The transition from government control to the private sector is one with obvious challenges and it is difficult to understand how supporters have quickly become turncoats -- criticizing Lockheed Martin when difficulties surface and taking malicious actions when they could continue to support the company and ease the transition.

Further complicating matters is a workforce of specialists who fought unsuccessfully to prevent the privatization of their careers with hopes of saving their government pensions. According to an age-discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of flight service specialists, 92 percent of the flight service workforce is over 40 years old. The lawsuit alleges that "... there is no reasonable factor other than the age of the workforce that is motivating this contracting-out decision." The only option for those specialists who hoped to maintain their pension was to find another federal job. The greatest challenge: Many flight service specialists (and air traffic controllers) have specialized skills, but are not formally educated beyond a high school diploma, making it difficult to transition into another government position.

An uncomfortable workforce that faces financial uncertainty coupled with the disgruntled flying public has made it very difficult to provide pilots with a needed service. It is important for pilots to afford flight service specialists with similar patience and graciousness once offered to them by their flight instructors. We are learning a new system that was forced on us as a result of decisions largely supported by pilot organizations and politicians under the pretense of the best interests of pilots in mind.

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Lockheed Given another billion dollars of taxpayer money to privatize military

More on Privatization and Vance Security

To date, more than 4,300 private security officers have been put to work at 50 Army installations in the United States, according to Army documents obtained by The Times.

The work was awarded to four firms — two of which got the contracts without having to bid competitively. The contracts are worth as much as $1.24 billion.

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Two five-year contracts worth as much as $1 billion went to two small Alaska Native firms with little previous security experience. The firms, which operate under special contracting laws enabling them to avoid competitive bidding, subcontracted part of the work to two of the country's largest security firms: Wackenhut Services Inc. and Vance Federal Security Services.

Thirty-six bases are covered by the Alaska Native contracts — including three in California: Ft. Irwin, the Sierra Army Depot and the Presidio of Monterey.

"I'm concerned about the protection of our military facilities," said Rep. Lane Evans, an Illinois Democrat who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and has called for hearings on the contracts.

"Some of these installations house chemical weapons and intelligence materials and should not be compromised with questionable contracting processes and poor security."

Democrats, watchdog groups and independent contracting experts said that the Army's contracting arrangement with the Alaska Native firms amounted to a back-door deal to send taxpayer dollars to Wackenhut and Vance, which lost out the only time they faced open competition against other companies for the security contracts.

"It's a total abuse of the intent of the law," said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Program on Government Oversight, a watchdog group. "The law was designed to benefit companies that need a special boost. At the end of the day, if Wackenhut is benefiting, it's just a blatant abuse of the system."

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"The overall performance of the [security guard program] has been excellent and to the standards of the contract," the Army said in a written response to questions from The Times.

The private security firms also dismissed the complaints.

Wackenhut said the criticisms were part of a labor battle against the company involving one of the country's largest service unions, Service Employees International Union, which wanted to unionize Wackenhut guards.

Alutiiq said its performance rating justified the Army's decision.

The firm's previous security experience consisted of fielding a 120-man private police force for Kwajalein Atoll, a missile test site in the South Pacific.

"We are paying [our guards] a little higher. But we're getting quality performance as a result. You get what you pay for," said Bruce Swagler, the head of Alutiiq's security program. "Quality-wise and performance-wise, as far as the government is concerned, we're doing a great job."

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Security Guard from Outsourced Company opens fire at Walter Reed while having argument and temper fit

An armed security guard fired at least 10 shots at another guard during an argument outside a busy entrance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center early Wednesday, police said. No one was hurt.
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The guards worked for Vance Federal Security Services, said Joe Gavaghan, a spokesman for the company, which contracts with Walter Reed. Vance is "cooperating with authorities investigating this incident," said Gavaghan, adding that the company could not provide additional details.

The hospital is the Army's premier center for treating injured soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The FSS Mess, Privatization and the Lack of Personal Responsibility

Somewhere, somehow, Marion Blakey and her Administration seem to have lost sight of their mandate to provide for the safety of American citizens who travel by air. Perhaps it was when she made the decision to get rid of those pesky general aviation aircraft by starting the user-fee juggernaut. Perhaps it was earlier, when someone saw that one of the portions of the FAA, the Flight Service Station system, was carrying out its designated function rapidly, accurately, safely, and generally working in a nearly flawless manner. Naturally the reaction was that such a situation was intolerable. Because ongoing competence in the field of safe aviation could not be allowed to continue, the FAA went through a grueling and expensive process to fix it. In October of 2005, ostensibly to save the taxpayers money, it entered into a $1.7 billion contract to "privatize" (is that really a verb?) a portion of the FAA that worked well. I know, children ... one would think that if private industry could do a government function better than the government, then the FAA would have privatized one of the parts of the FAA that doesn't work. Children, such a thought would require us to apply that evil concept, logic, to the operation of political machinery. Children, you know very well that logic should never be used when traveling through the looking glass into privatization land.

The $1.7 billion contract with Lockheed-Martin was to save 20% off the cost of having the work done by FAA personnel, who apparently were evil, money-grubbing government employees who had committed the mortal sin of competence. Of course, there were those sticks-in-the-mud who felt that the numbers didn't add up. After all, you have to pay enough to hire the kind of talent needed to staff the Flight Service Stations, located where the briefers could have detailed local knowledge of the prevailing weather patterns, and equip them with the latest computers, and finally allow for the kind of profit that shareholders will demand (on the order of 8-15%). How can Lockheed-Martin do this for less than the folks who have been doing it so very well for so many years without the cost of a return to the stockholding mutual funds?

Well, those who were skeptical were told to close their eyes, click their heels together and get with the program. Even when the FAA's own internal investigative folks looked at the contract and pronounced that there were grave doubts as to whether Lockheed-Martin could pull it off, Marion Blakey and her friends decided that such talk was defeatist and shouldn't be considered. Besides, Lockheed-Martin contributed nicely to the appropriate politicians, so a politically appointed sort doesn't want to make waves, even if she is in a job involving air safety. Nevertheless, for people whose sole purpose in employment is air safety, to shrug off an objective report by one's own agency that indicates that a critical safety function is imperiled is, at least in my opinion, reckless and irresponsible in handling our money. If someone dies as a result, it may become criminal.

BushCo Spreads Terrorism Far and Wide Making the World Safe For Defense Contractors and Military Privatizers

Gay linguists Fired from US Military ( Must work too cheaply)

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Around 40 Congressmen and women signed a letter to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, that the continued loss of such "capable, highly skilled Arabic linguists continues to compromise our national security during time of war."

Representative Marty Meehan, a Democrat from Massachusetts, serves on the House Armed Services Committee and has led the fight for repeal of the current policy towards gays in the military.

He organised the written request after it emerged that 58 Arab speakers had been dismissed under "Don't Ask Don't Tell."
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Offense Contractor General Dynamics Awarded $19 Million Taxpayer Dollars Contract to Establish National Corps of Language Professionals

General Dynamics, headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia, employs approximately 82,600 people worldwide and had 2006 revenues of $24.1 billion. The company is a market leader in business aviation; land and expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions; shipbuilding and marine systems; and information systems and technologies. More information about the company is available online at http://www.generaldynamics.com/ .

United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants Visits U.S