MetaFilter posts tagged with oversight

Keeping Our Eyes on the Money

ornate insect — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:58:31 -0800

Although the government has committed almost 3 trillion dollars to rescuing the financial sector, testimony today revealed that 6 months after the start of TARP, basic oversight of the program is lacking (more here and here), including the failure to account for almost 80 billion dollars. Meanwhile, Congress wants to know more about the court-appointed AIG monitor, while Neal Wolin, who helped draft Gramm-Leach-Bliley, has replaced a former hedge fund manager to run TARP--raising more questions about who is overseeing the plans, and about how they are being administered.

EPIC FAIL: The Astroturf is always greener on the other side.

Skygazer — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:07:09 -0800

Rusty Shackleford over at right-wing anti-Muslim jihad blog The Jawa Report has posted that the Obama campaign, in an effort to portray Sarah Palin a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, is engaged in a smear campaign through the use of viral video and astroturf techniques on You Tube. Shackleford claims the narrator of the smear video has worked previously on ads put out by the Obama campaign. And that “This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with [Obama campaign manager] David Axelrod's PR firm, which has a history of engaging in "phony grassroots efforts.” Shackleford also posits that the haste with which the individual who posted the video on You Tube, “eswinner,” or Ethan S. Winner, an executive for the public relations firm Winner & Assoc., removed the video proves an Obama campaign cover up in the works and that Winner & Assoc. were most likely paid by Axelrod to execute an Astroturf smear campaign against Sarah Palin. Axelrod's PR firm had a brief relationship with Winner & Assoc. from a Detroit Mayor's initiative they worked in separate capacities in 1996. Winner and Assoc, work predominately for big oil and utility companies, but also handle political campaigns and initiatives throught a subsidiary: Winner & Mandabach. Shackleford, although he presents the piece as having a high probability of being correct, admits, as his legal team advises him to, that much of it is "conjecture" and "speculation," Yet in his eagerness to expose Obama as a lowdown Chicago style political operator, he fails to discover, until he reads it here, that there is, indeed, an individual with a suspicious and compelling tie to the Winner & Assoc. public relations firm. That person is Sen. John McCain. In 2002 John McCain worked for Winner & Mandabach, a subsidiary of Winner & Assoc., to convince the people of Arizona to vote “YES” on proposition 202. One of three competing Indian gaming initiatives supported by the 17 Tribes coalition of Arizona. The 17 tribes hired Winner & Mandabach to see to it that there proposition was the one that would become law. McCain was brought in by Winner & Mandabach as a third-party player to lend his name and support to ads and mailings. The proposition was opposed by Arizona Christian groups and denied the state of Arizona $300 million dollars in annual taxes annually or imposing greater oversight and regulation. What compensation was made available to McCain for his services? “While candidates, PACs and party committees are held accountable for political funds, Indian tribes file nothing. … Disclosure only comes from those who file reports indicating they received donations from a tribe. … [T]here is no way to double check the accuracy of the reports.” McCain was twice chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, in 1995–1997 and 2005–2007. (On a side note for those who know of him, Prop 202 was also supported by human rights violator and denier of constitutional rights Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Previously on Metafilter.)

Disaster Capitalism

Blazecock Pileon — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:35:26 -0800

"Like the dotcom bubble, the disaster bubble is inflating in an ad-hoc and chaotic fashion." Journalist Naomi Klein discusses how corporations and governments are working together more closely than ever, using the mandate of catastrophe — whether natural or man-made — to further concentrate power in fewer hands, with less oversight: from illegal sales of American police technology to China to avert hypothetical tragedies during the Beijing Olympics, to the privatization of water supplies in post-tsunami Sri Lanka.

We've Replaced The Patient's Blood With PolyHeme. Let's See If They Notice.

scrump — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:54:31 -0800

The blood substitute PolyHeme has been previously discussed on MetaFilter, but new evidence shows that PolyHeme actually raises the chances of death by nearly 30%. PolyHeme was notable mostly for the reaction to its clinical trials, which, controversially, did not require patient consent.

Dr. Noori ... stayed home the day of the strike to prevent his workers from finding out that he knew many of the soldiers.

amberglow — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 04:02:09 -0800

"I thought, 'Why don't we just raid the place?' " --the newest and only currently viable way to check up on how the billions and billions we're spending on reconstruction in Iraq is being spent--fake raids by the US military, making it seem like the recipients aren't receiving aid from us, and in fact are being targeted by us.

Self-examination from the Fourth Estate — "Yep, still there."

Mr. Six — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 16:02:43 -0800

"And yet the people who invented this country saw an aggressive, independent press as a protective measure against the abuse of power in a democracy, and an essential ingredient for self-government." Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, publicly responds to criticisms on the publication of information about clandestine surveillance of private bank records of Americans, offering a rare glimpse into the Fourth Estate's complicated negotiations with the government over issues of public interest.

Alarming Article on Security Procedures

JKevinKing — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 10:53:55 -0800

Alarming Article on Security Procedures What is alarming is not necessarily that there is a "no-fly" list, or that we have security measures in response to a percieved terrorist threat. What's alarming is that there seems to be no accountabity or due process demanded from public officials. Without accountability, what's to stop public officials from acting arbitrarily, or for some political endeavor? (See the Plame case.) Combined with the Right's seeming position that the president is above the law in prosecuting a war, U.S. Supreme Court Case No. 03-1027 (Rumsfield v. Padilla) and Case No. 03-6696 (Hamdi v. Rumsfield), (see also the recent DOJ position papers), and for the 1st time I am becoming nervous that America might devolve into something like a police state.

Moose?

amberglow — Mon, 15 Dec 2003 20:22:56 -0800

Robert "Moose" Cobb's new job --Under fire for its handling of postwar contracts in Iraq, the Bush administration plans to appoint NASA's inspector general to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad to oversee investigations of any alleged abuses. Cobb was Associate Presidential Counsel for Bush and before that spent nine years as a career attorney with the Office of Government Ethics. His appointment was seen as a bid by the administration to counter criticism -- mostly from Democrats in Congress -- that oversight of multibillion-dollar contracts has been lax. So can a guy who worked in the Bush White House actually be trusted to objectively investigate abuses? And if the Pentagon is auditing all of this, why use this guy? (and can the Pentagon objectively investigate this stuff either?)