WhistleblowerSupporter

Support Your Local “Occupy Your Town/City” Movement

I received an email today from someone who did not understand why I was not actively supporting the “Occupy” efforts across the country.  I’ve been watching news of these activities with interest. (The real news, not corporate owned media outlets who are NOT reporting it for the most part, and not accurately reporting it for the rest.)   A week or so ago I intended to go down and find out for myself what was going on, but work and several family disasters delayed my expedition down there.  Probably the same excuse, many of you have for not actively helping in some way or another.  

 

When you consider that the Occupy efforts appear to be a collaboration of committed individuals who have various concerns and complaints, many of which are caused by corporations, politicians, bureaucracy, greedy examples of those with more than most, etc.  The problems are social, economic, and political.  I can see my reader’s point

 

These are the same people who are helping to enable corporations and various hands and arms of government that are causing the very situations that are creating whistleblowers.  Greed, power mongering, cronyism, influence pedaling, unethical and criminal contracting activities, fraud, waste, abuse, and a host of other ills are examples.  Honorable people when confronted by this try to change it, report it, fix it and usually get the stuffing kicked out of them for their efforts in the climate we are dealing with in this country today. 

 

I agree that I should help promote the support of those who have the courage, determination and commitment to go be an active part of peaceful protest in events being staged across the nation.  Even if you cannot take part in the sign holding and waving, stop by and talk, find out why these people are down there and what they need to stay well and comfortable.  This is especially true in parts of the country that are now turning cold, wet and inhospitable.  My reader suggested donating supplies that are so critically needed like, warm coats, gloves, hats, food, especially things that can be cooked or heated under outdoor camping conditions.  Waterproof plastic storage boxes, tents, sleeping bags, cooking utensils, first aid supplies, those hand warmer sticks you can buy at sporting goods stores, and anything else that will keep up the volunteer’s spirits and energy.  

 

My reader reported that the Occupy Tacoma (in Washington State, south of Seattle, in a park on Pacific Avenue, downtown, at the cross street with the new bridge across the Puyallup River) is a neat and orderly effort showing a positively motivated cooperative of young and old that demonstrates a stellar example of the best of human effort.  They, who are giving the best they can to make a difference and to help the majority of us break out of our complacency and paralyzed condition, deserve our support and help. 

 

When those  with wealth and political control,  who continue to take and take and manipulate things to the detriment of the majority (working class and poor)  in this country are taken to task, and our society balances and rights itself again, we will also be reducing the number of whistleblowers, because there will be less crap and corruption to report,  and to fight against in our work places. 

 

Please take time this week or weekend and do what you can for your local “Occupy ____________” effort.  If you can report on your local Occupy activities, please comment here on this site; you are welcome to voice your observations and opinions. 

 

As for me, I am going to the coat closet, storage room and pantry right now! 

GFS

 

 

POGO Reports: Secret Deals May Lead to Bailouts for Defense Contractor Misconduct

Something I found today on POGO follows..  There seems to be a pattern of seeking no accountability for contractor’s malevolent actions.  KBR (Halliburton) has a disgraceful record in the Middle East.  Is this another such corrupt action taken by government, in this case DoD,  to hold these contractors harmless for their crimes?  Could something be in the works for other contractors? 

Read the articles posted previously on this blog regarding the unfortunate experiences of Boeing International Support Systems employee, Robin Petersen, and his being held captive by BISS and Saudi Arabia and not be allowed to return to the U.S. for medical help after he was injured while doing the job he was hired to do by this Boeing wholly owned subsidiary while in Saudi Arabia.  Boeing’s evasion of Petersen's attorney serving Boeing/BISS the summons and paperwork for Petersen's lawsuit is certainly interesting in light of all of this.

Think back to Druyan and Sears and the Tanker scandal and Boeing getting Eric Holder's help in putting into place a non-prosecution agreement.  As long as Boeing offered up victims, of lower managers or employees, Boeing Corporate itself would not be held accountable or be barred from receiving contracts in the future.  Handy, yes?  Is there some other smoke and mirrors thing starting to manifest itself again?  This time it would be DoD writing off accountability for contractors and their actions.  GFS

POGO

Oct 01, 2010

Secret Deals May Lead to Bailouts for Defense Contractor Misconduct

We may be unknowingly bailing out defense contractors such as KBR for the harm they cause, according to Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.

This week, Blumenauer, along with Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., and Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., introduced the Accountability for Defense Contractors Act. This bill would increase transparency and accountability in defense contracting by regulating the Pentagon’s use of classified contract provisions that indemnify contractors from damage lawsuits. It would require the Secretary of Defense to notify Congress when accepting liability in excess of $1 million on behalf of a contractor. It also would prohibit indemnification in cases where the contractor acted with “gross negligence, willful misconduct, or lack of good faith” or the harm resulted from “an unusually hazardous or nuclear risk not specified in the terms of the contract and discovered on the site where the contract is performed, or that reasonably should have been discovered.”

Last year, several Oregon National Guard veterans sued KBR for knowingly exposing them to a cancer-causing substance called hexavalent chromium while protecting KBR employees who were restoring a water treatment plant in Iraq in 2003. It was discovered during the course of litigation that KBR’s Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract with the U.S. Army contains a classified clause indemnifying KBR for any property damage, injury or death occurring at all KBR worksites. Similar lawsuits against KBR have been filed by current and former National Guard members from Indiana and West Virginia who were also stationed at the water treatment plant in the early months of the war. This means the Army (i.e. the taxpayer) could be hit with millions of dollars in costs and damages.

Last month, Army Secretary John McHugh refused to declassify the KBR indemnification clause in his response to Blumenauer’s inquiry, but he insisted that, apart from the RIO contract, no other Army contracts awarded to companies operating in contingency situations since 2001 contain indemnification provisions. Left unsaid, of course, is whether the other service branches and units of the Department of Defense, to say nothing of other federal agencies, are providing secret indemnity to their contractors.

“The Army considers the use of indemnification provisions only in extraordinary circumstances involving unusually hazardous risks,” McHugh wrote. He also assured Blumenauer that KBR has not yet asserted any claim—and the Army has not made any payments—under the provision.

We’re glad to see Members of Congress addressing this issue and we support the Accountability for Defense Contractors Act. But we’re not convinced that contractors need immunity for wrongdoing. We’re also still left wondering: If certain government functions require perks such as secret grants of legal immunity in order to get the private sector to perform them, why are these functions even considered suitable for outsourcing in the first place?

Neil Gordon

Link to original:   http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2010/10/secret-deals-may-lead-to-bailouts-for-defense-contractor-misconduct.html

Goldman Sachs Focus of Possible Criminal Investigation

House Members Call for Criminal Investigation Into Goldman Sachs After Senate Hearing

Friday 30 April 2010

by: Grace Huang, t r u t h o u t | Report

 

Goldman Sachs building, New Jersey. (Photo: lymangsr / Flickr; Edited: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t)

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder sent Wednesday, 62 members of the House asked the Justice Department to begin a criminal investigation of Goldman Sachs and other firms that possibly committed fraud.

"If both global and domestic confidence in the integrity of the U.S. financial system is to be regained, there must be confidence that criminal acts will be vigorously pursued and perpetrators punished," the House members, led by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), wrote in the letter.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a civil suit against Goldman Sachs on April 16 accusing it of securities fraud, accusing it of selling mortgage investments that it was betting would fail without telling its clients. Though these were first intended to protect Goldman from losses if the housing market soured, it created more of these securities over time to make large amounts of money as the market worsened.

Goldman earned a record $4.79 billion in the last fiscal quarter of 2009.

The SEC alleges that Goldman created the investments - known as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) - and then bet on them based on the advice of John Paulson after paying him $15 million to devise such investments that were likely to decline.

 

To read the rest of the article, go to link below:

 

http://www.truthout.org/house-members-call-criminal-investigation-into-goldman-sachs-after-senate-hearing59037

How much should we worry about America's Public Debt?

America's Public Debt: The Least of Our Worries

Friday 26 February 2010

by: Mark Weisbrot  |  The Center for Economic and Policy Research

(Photo: iDanSimpson)

Various political demagogues and Wall Street interests have mounted a campaign to convince Americans that despite persistent massive unemployment for the foreseeable future, more than 15 million people underwater on their home mortgages, and two unnecessary wars, what we really should be worried about is America's national debt.

 

 

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C.  He is also president of Just Foreign Policy.

 

Link or Original:  http://www.truthout.org/americas-public-debt-the-least-our-worries57233

 

A Different Perspective on the Economic Meltdown (and what our real problems may be)

America's Public Debt: The Least of Our Worries

Friday 26 February 2010

by: Mark Weisbrot  |  The Center for Economic and Policy Research

 

Various political demagogues and Wall Street interests have mounted a campaign to convince Americans that despite persistent massive unemployment for the foreseeable future, more than 15 million people underwater on their home mortgages, and two unnecessary wars, what we really should be worried about is America's national debt.  (Read on)

 

 

Link or Original:  http://www.truthout.org/americas-public-debt-the-least-our-worries57233

No Banker Left Behind? That's about the size if it.

This is the continuing outrage of corruption and greed.  Is there any wonder there are so many whistleblowers, and even more people without the courage to be a whistleblower?  The corruption in government and industry is ruining our country.  Help us stand up to this!  -GFS

Robert Scheer | No Banker Left Behind

Thursday 25 February 2010

by: Robert Scheer, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

They do have a license to steal. There is no other way to read Tuesday's report from the New York state comptroller that bonuses for Wall Street financiers rose 17 percent to $20.3 billion in 2009. Of course, that is less than the $32.9 billion for bonus rewards back in 2007, when those hotshots could still pretend that they were running sound businesses.

The economy is anything but sound, but you would hardly know that from looking at the balance sheets of the big investment banks. The broker-dealer firms on Wall Street made a record profit, estimated at greater than $55 billion by the comptroller, and the only thing holding back even more grotesque bonuses was concern over criticism from a public that was hardly doing as well.

The enormous rewards last year come not from their having righted the ship of finance by lowering the rate of mortgage foreclosures for ordinary folks, one of four who are now "underwater" on their loans. Consumer confidence this month is the lowest in 27 years, and unemployment is expected to hover near 10 percent for the next two years. No, they get bonuses because the Federal Reserve, backed by the Treasury, bought the toxic mortgage securitization packages that Wall Street banks were left holding. They, and they alone, were made whole.

The way the scam worked is that the Treasury deposited taxpayer dollars with the Federal Reserve, which in turn purchased a whopping $1.25 trillion in toxic mortgages. That's the figure after the Treasury on Tuesday committed to depositing $200 billion more with the Fed to increase spending on this program -- one that was ostensibly designed to increase credit availability to small businesses and others but has hardly accomplished that goal. Credit is still very tight because the big financiers have used the low-cost cash they received from those charitable government programs to solidify their own positions through acquisitions and the like. Call it the "no banker left behind" program… .  (Read on)

Link to original:  http://www.truthout.org/robert-scheer-no-banker-left-behind57201

Fun With the FDIC

This link will take you to the ThinkBigWorkSmall website.  The energy behind their message is inspiring. 

Enjoy!  -GFS

http://www.thinkbigworksmall.com/mypage/player/tbws/23088/830654

Hidden Treuhand, Trusts: time to "get it"

Someone sent me this today.  Word is getting around.  More people should be concerned with this threat to the vitality and integrity of our economy and personal finances.  GFS 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

From:  Tax Justice Network

 We just had a belated comment posted on a Guest Blog we hosted a while ago, about the Hidden Treuhand mechanism, similar and related to the material we've posted on trusts. The blog focused on Shelley Stark's book, Hidden Treuhand (pictured.) The comment noted:

"I read Ms. Stark's book shortly after it came out. It became abundantly clear to me that she answered how some of our elected or appointed officials were evading the conflict of interest laws or policies which require divesting oneself of financial relationships with certain corporate or investment entities depending on the area of influence or oversight the official has in their offical capacity.

The answer is they don't divest themselves. They hide themselves, their investments and their profits in these types of financial instruments. No wonder corruption and unethical behaviors are at an all time high both in government and industry.

And the most frustrating thing to me is that so many people I try to share this with just don't get it. They cannot afford not to "get it." This financial crime is affecting all of us profoundly, particularly those who work for a living and don't have international banking and lawyer resources at our fingertips."

Indeed. It all relates up to different areas we've been addressing: corporate responsibility, the integrity of markets, inequality, political accountability and so much more.

Link to original article/site:  http://taxjustice.blogspot.com/2010/01/hidden-treuhand-trusts-time-to-get-it.html

A reader responds to Sen. Cantwell's comments on the financial crisis

Another of my readers has written.  This one has sent a response to Senator Maria Cantwell’s letter regarding oversight of the financial sector of our country.  (See Cantwell's letter posted here earlier today.)  Here is his/her letter.  I have removed names to protect his/her privacy.  GFS

 

********************************************************************

 

Dear Senator Cantwell,

Congratulations on your forward thinking on regulations on the CFTC.  We need a tight rein on this horse!  I especially like the idea that states should protect themselves against this type of gambling.

A number of years ago, I took a fling in the stock market and did a lot of studying in the process.  Finally decided, that gambling game wasn’t for me as there was just too much “buddy” system working there.  Too many of the same people on various boards.  And with that thought in mind, how about preventing corporations from giving bonuses of stock, where they can control the company to the smaller  stock holders disadvantage.

 

Also, your ideas are good, but are based on the honesty of the people enforcing the regulations and  this does not seem to be working in other areas of commerce.  I believe it started a number of years ago when people from corporations went to work for the government and rewrote regulations to help corporations and when that was accomplished they went back to work for corporations.  At the time they also managed to hire people and not train them for the oversight jobs they were suppose to do.

 

This is continuing today. By our not enforcing regulations or changing regulations to not allow people to use the “swinging door” to move back and forth between government and corporations.  We need to change that and provide for a five year hiatus between working for the Feds. and Corporations.  At the same time we need to enact laws that would protect  federal workers in sensitive oversight positions from retaliation from corrupt superiors.  I think this is called the Whistleblowers Protection Act.

 

I would like to think we live in a world where people that chose to do the right thing in their jobs, can do so without jeopardizing the rest of their lives.  I look forward to seeing you accomplish what you have set out to do.  Keep up the good work.

Sincerely yours,

Senator Cantwell writes about concerns regarding the financial sector.

One of my readers wrote to Senator Cantwell, ((D) Washington State), about the concerns my reader has about the financial area, particularly after reading Shelley Stark’s Hidden Treuhand book.  This is the response Senator Cantwell sent to her that she sent to me to post for the interest of other readers.  -GFS

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From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]

Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 10:32 AM

To:

Subject: From the Office of Senator Cantwell

 

Dear _____________,

 

Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns about the need for regulatory reform of the country's financial markets.  I appreciate hearing from you on this important matter, and I sincerely regret the delayed response.

 

The recent crisis in our housing and financial markets has shaken the confidence of the American people.  I recognize the tremendous burden that Washington families and businesses have faced in recent months and I remained concerned about the lack of transparency and oversight in U.S. financial markets.  Like you, I am concerned about the stability of our country's financial markets and believe that regulatory reform is necessary.  Reckless subprime mortgage lending resulted in people being kicked out of their homes, hurt small banks, and nearly collapsed large too-big-to-fail banks.  Businesses are failing and laying workers off because they cannot access the credit they need.  Community banks are not lending and prospective borrowers are left with few or no options.  It is clear that one of the primary causes of the economic meltdown was the opaque nature of the unregulated derivatives market.

 

Derivatives are a complex financial tool that, when adequately regulated, can be used to manage commercial risk.  For instance, electric utilities and airlines purchase derivatives to hedge against potential future price increases of natural gas or jet fuel.  Corporations can purchase interest-rate derivatives to hedge against fluctuations in interest rates that can increase input costs.  However, derivatives were also being used by speculators and big banks to make off-book bets on everything from home prices to foreclosure rates, energy prices, and even food prices. Trillions of dollars worth of unregulated derivatives tied to credit markets and complex financial mortgage-based instruments fueled the crisis.

 

Prior to 2000, no federal law exempted derivatives from being traded on safe, transparent regulated central exchanges overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).  This oversight protected the public from the inherent risk posed by derivatives and from the chaos that could result from unscrupulous or reckless trading.  However, in 2000, major financial firms sought and received an exemption from all regulation of a massive class of derivatives, including preemption from state gambling laws.

 

The lack of any regulations at the federal level meant that, in effect, the 2000 law changes enabled rampant derivatives speculation that culminated in the economic collapse of 2008.  In 2000, when the deregulation law passed, the derivatives market was already $94 trillion.  After deregulation, the derivatives market ballooned to over $598 trillion by 2008.  Major Wall Street firms grew too big to fail because they were making massive bets on unregulated derivatives with no capital to back up those bets.  When these bets didn't pay up, it was up to American taxpayers to provide the capital to bail them out.  We cannot allow this to happen again.

 

That is why I am fighting to ensure that we have the strongest possible reforms over our financial markets.  Last year, I worked with the Administration on proposing strong regulatory controls on these markets, including requiring transparency in derivatives trading and restricting market manipulation.  After numerous conversations with the administration, I was pleased when they announced support for some of the proposals I had called for, including clear support for bringing the unregulated derivatives market under full regulation and oversight.

 

On September 17, 2009, I introduced the Derivatives Market Manipulation Prevention Act of 2009 (S. 1682), which would make it easier for the CFTC to prevent, deter, and enforce cases of market manipulation in derivatives.  Current law makes it very difficult for the CFTC to effectively meet its mandate to enforce and deter market manipulation.  This is because current law requires the CFTC to meet a more rigorous standard to prove market manipulation than other financial market regulatory agencies such as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). My bill would establish a bright line so that the CFTC can effectively enforce and deter market manipulation in commodity futures and derivatives markets.

 

On November 10, 2009 I introduced S. 2763, a bill to repeal the state gambling law preemption on unregulated derivatives.  My bill would empower state gambling regulators and attorney generals to examine unregulated derivatives trading and take appropriate action to protect citizens from practices which can harm the foundations of our economy.  As Congress considers comprehensive legislation to close loopholes and exemptions from federal derivatives regulation, states should no longer be prohibited from also protecting their citizens.

 

I will be working with my colleagues to ensure Congress passes the strongest financial market reform bill possible.  We must ensure that large financial firms serve as a force to create jobs and facilitate entrepreneurship, and prevent reckless use of unregulated financial products that can bring down the entire financial system.

 

Please be assured that I will continue my efforts in the U.S. Senate to bring transparency to government and to the financial markets by fighting for smart, effective regulation and oversight so we do not face a catastrophe like this again.

 

Thank you again for contacting me to share your thoughts on this matter.  You may also be interested in signing up for periodic updates for Washington State residents.  If you are interested in subscribing to this update, please visit my website at http://cantwell.senate.gov.  Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of further assistance.

 

Sincerely,

Maria Cantwell

United States Senator

For future correspondence with my office, please visit my website at

http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/index.html