Fraud Waste & Abuse
"When you are given an FBI BlackBerry, it's for official use," Ms Will said. "It's not to text the woman in another office who you found attractive or to send a picture of yourself in a state of undress."
It’s not exactly breaking news that the federal government is riddled with fraud, waste and abuse. Daily headlines highlight corruption within federal agencies and inform us about everything from employees splurging on fancy conferences to workers shopping for BMWs and home theaters—all on the taxpayers’ dime. -Brianna Ehley 
In 2012, the federal government reportedly lost $261 billion, or 7% of total spending, to fraud and waste.
The government spent a breathtaking $26 million to provide dead people—who were poor when they were alive—with health insurance in one state alone, according to a new federal audit. -Judicial Watch
Anthony Fauci's National Institutes of Health
Puppy Torture
Oct 2021
Figure 1: Science
"Our investigators show that Fauci’s NIH division shipped part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive," White Coat Waste told Changing America.
"They also locked beagles alone in cages in the desert overnight for nine consecutive nights to use them as bait to attract infectious sand flies."
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste, Convict
The federal government doled out $783.5 million for incarcerated individuals as part of the American Rescue Plan, Fox News has learned.
In response to a public records request from conservative group American Crossroads, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revealed that the money flowed to 560,000 individuals who were incarcerated for the full tax year 2020.
Passed in March, the American Rescue Plan granted $1,400 in stimulus money to people making less than $75,000 per year.
Environmentalist, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Oops, Waste, Biden
More than two dozen electric Proterra buses first unveiled by the city of Philadelphia in 2016 are already out of operation, according to a WHYY investigation.
The entire fleet of Proterra buses was removed from the roads by SEPTA, the city's transit authority, in February 2020 due to both structural and logistical problems—the weight of the powerful battery was cracking the vehicles' chassis, and the battery life was insufficient for the city's bus routes...
The city paid $24 million for the 25 new Proterra buses, subsidized in part by a $2.6 million federal grant...
Proterra, which had Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on its board of directors when Philadelphia pulled the buses off the streets last year, has been highlighted by the Biden administration as a business of the future.
Liberal, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste
The New York City Department of Education doesn’t know what happened to the $84 million it spent on students with disabilities programs, an audit report released Monday shows.
Controller of the audit, Scott Stringer, pointed to the fact that the city didn’t track where money for physical and speech therapy treatment as well as psychological counseling landed. Instead, NYC ended up spending the money on poorly crafted and even completely empty programs designed to scam the government into wasting taxpayer dollars on pointless education initiatives.
“During the audit, DOE represented that it did not have any project plans, implementation schedules, and progress reports to document the steps taken, rate of progress, and total cost” the report reads.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Fraud, Oops, Waste, Corruption
The controversial “Obamaphone” program, which pays for cellphones for the poor, is rife with fraud, according to a new government report Thursday that found more than a third of enrollees may not even be qualified.
Known officially as the Lifeline Program, the phone giveaway became a symbol of government waste in the previous administration. Now a new report from the Government Accountability Office bears out those concerns.
The report, requested by Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, also says the program has stashed some $9 billion in assets in private bank accounts rather than with the federal treasury...
Government, Sex, Degeneracy, Financial, Oops, Debt, Jobs
Almost 100 federal government employees have admitted to or been caught viewing copious amounts of pornography while on the job in the past five years, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team. The cases include workers who admitted spending six hours a day surfing illicit images and videos and maintaining tens of thousands of adult images on their office desktops.
While stories abound of government wasting our tax dollars, here is one that never the less sticks out; an automated Homeland Security system that cost a mind-boggling $1.7 billion and took nearly six years to develop has turned out to be a malfunctioning boondoggle.
Liberal, Government, Financial, Waste, Debt
Environmental Protection Agency employees used their government purchase cards to spend $14,985 on fitness memberships, according to an audit by the inspector general of the agency... In March of 2014, the inspector general released a report noting that of the $152,602 in transactions that they evaluated, $79,254 went to purchases that were prohibited, improper, or erroneous.
Liberal, Government, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Corruption, Theft
Dead retailers redeemed more than $2 billion worth of food stamps, according to a new audit. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s inspector general reviewed billions of transactions through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. It found that thousands of stores authorized to accept food stamps were using the Social Security numbers of deceased persons.
Government, Degeneracy, Oops, Waste
Two Environmental Protection Agency employees apologized for watching pornography at work, including one employee who was caught watching lewd videos by a child in the agency's office. Greenwire reported Thursday that two employees were found to be watching and downloading porn at work. One of the employees had been caught by a child visiting the agency's office during Bring Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day.
Environmentalist, Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Science, Narrative, Oops, Experts, Waste, Lie, Corruption
Nearly two decades and $108 million worth of “disturbing” data manipulation with “serious and far ranging” effects forced a federal lab to close, a congressman revealed Thursday. The inorganic section of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Energy Geochemistry Laboratory in Lakewood, Colo. manipulated data on a variety of topics – including many related to the environment – from 1996 to 2014. The manipulation was caught in 2008, but continued another six years...
“Tell me what you want and I will get it for you. What we do is like magic,” a former USGS official told auditors a former employee linked to the manipulation would say, according to Westerman.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste, Debt
Social Security Administration (SSA) officials spent $300 million over an eight-year period developing a new disability case processing software that is useless, according to the SSA Office of Inspector General (IG)... Eight years later, what little the agency has developed through contractors is so useless SSA might be better off sticking with its old management systems, the IG found.
"So this guy is making $125,000, spending two to six hours a day looking at porno," said Rep. John Mica (R-FL), who was told by officials that the worker had been given performance awards - despite one time spending four straight hours on a website called, "Sadism is Beautiful." "How much pornography would it take for an EPA employee to lose their job?" asked a frustrated Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA).
Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Financial, Funny, Waste, Debt
Taxpayers paid for one scientist to have a bee sting his penis, and paid other researchers to figure out that cheerleaders look more attractive in a group than individually, according to a painful new survey of wasteful spending being released Tuesday by Sen. Jeff Flake... Perhaps the most outrageous item Mr. Flake identified was a study that concluded Democratic women in Congress were less feminine than Republican women.
"It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth.
Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money."
Liberal, Government, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Sexism, Law, Regulation, Jobs
Exactly two people are responsible for filing over 1,700 sex discrimination complaints with the federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in the last few years... In 2009, the number of complaints of all kinds was 6,364. Last year, the number of all complaints was 9,989. In response to this massive surge, the U.S. Department of Education is seeking to hire 200 additional attorneys and investigators.
Government, Incompetence, Funny, Science, Politics, Waste, Feminism
The National Science Foundation has spent more than $400,000 on a study that published scientific results on the “relationship between gender and glaciers.”
The paper “Glaciers, gender, and science,” published in January 2016, concluded that “ice is not just ice,” urging scientists to take a “feminist political ecology and feminist postcolonial” approach when they study melting ice caps and climate change.
Government, Incompetence, Waste
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is spending $80,000 to see what effects space flight has on oral herpes. The federal space agency has awarded multiple grants and contracts to a researcher at the University of Florida to determine the “Effect of Spaceflight on Herpesvirus Genome Stability and Diversity,” beginning last summer.
Liberal, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste, Debt
An audit from Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s office found a series of “design and process flaws” in the state’s health care exchange that allowed deceased individuals to be enrolled for Medicaid coverage... ”During our audit period, 354 deceased individuals were identified in NYSOH as active Medicaid recipients. Of the 354 deceased people, 21 were enrolled by NYSOH after their dates of death.
Beale was caught when he “retired” very publicly but kept drawing his large salary for another year and a half. Top EPA officials, including McCarthy, attended a September 2011 retirement party for Beale and two colleagues aboard a Potomac yacht. Six months later, McCarthy learned he was still on the payroll.
Crime, Government, Sex, Degeneracy, Greed, Waste, Justice, Assault, Jobs
Several employees at the Drug Enforcement Administration received bonuses while they were under investigation in connection with sexual misconduct, according to a report from the Justice Department's inspector general released Thursday.
One DEA agent was ultimately suspended for 14 days after he allegedly hosted prostitutes on a regular basis in his government-leased quarters and allegedly assaulted a prostitute. Yet he received a $1,500 bonus while he was under investigation, according to the report.
Government, Character, Sex, Degeneracy, Fraud, Corruption
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said Tuesday that it is investigating reports that a supervisor used government time to recruit workers for private sex swinger parties at his home... It follows a report by the San Diego Union Tribune that an accusation of gross sexual misconduct was made in a complaint submitted to the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security earlier this year.
Hypocrisy, Government, Incompetence, Character, Financial, Fraud, Greed
A bipartisan group of senators demanded the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs hold VA executives accountable for a "shockingly unethical" plan to give themselves raises...
The senators cited a September inspector general report that they said "outlines an orchestrated scheme ... to skirt salary and bonus limitations ... by unnecessarily relocating executives and using those moves to justify increases in their pay."
Liberal, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Fraud, Greed, Theft
A 33-year-old convicted cocaine dealer collecting a monthly SSI handout used his state EBT welfare card to rent a bank safety-deposit box in which police have found $560,050 in cash – the latest in a series of busts in New England involving massive welfare fraud, often committed by drug dealers or recent immigrants...
In neighboring Massachusetts, a native of Ghana was charged last week with $3.6 million in theft from the federal food stamps program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Liberal, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste, Theft
Convenience store owner Vida Ofori Causey out of Worcester, Mass. was charged in federal court Monday after pleading guilty to $3.6 million worth of food stamp fraud. According to authorities, Causey abused the program between 2010 and 2014. Food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is run by local and federal agencies. It is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). She was able to scam the program by buying food stamp benefits from receipts for half the actual value.
A government worker is 38 percent more likely to be absent from work for personal reasons or illnesses than a private-sector worker, and government workers miss 50 percent more of their usual work hours as a result of such absences than do private sector workers, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Environmentalist, Hypocrisy, Warming, Government, Financial, Fraud, Oops, Greed, Waste, Debt
An Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official flew nearly every weekend from his office in San Francisco to his home in southern California, amassing $69,000 in “excessive trips,” according to the Office of Inspector General (OIG). A new audit found that the former Region 9 Administrator also charged taxpayers nearly $4,000 for ineligible travel costs, as the official made 88 trips that he said were work related in just three years.
Government, Character, Fraud, Waste, Lie, Jobs, Theft
Dozens of government employees at the U.S. Census Bureau have been billing taxpayers for time they never actually worked, wasting more than $1 million. The 40 officials were supposed to be performing background checks on the census personnel who walk door-to-door throughout the country to collect information about Americans. Instead, they "engaged in pervasive misconduct over several years," according to an investigation by the Commerce Department's inspector general... The inspector general found that dozens of employees claimed to have worked at least 19,162 hours during which they actually did not work at all between 2010-14.
Government, Sex, Degeneracy, Waste, Corruption
Two federal air marshals have been suspended without pay after allegedly using their government phones to film and share their sex acts with a prostitute while on assignment in Europe, The Intercept has learned... The two air marshals, based in Chicago, allegedly used their government-issued phones to record their own sexual encounters with a prostitute and then shared them using their personal email accounts, which they had connected to their work phones, according to TSA, government and law enforcement sources.
Government, Incompetence, Sex, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Corruption, Debt, Jobs
An unnamed high-ranking Department of Commerce official kept at least seven government-issued computers at her home where somebody used the equipment for months to view pornography and web sites featuring racial slurs. Then, when the department’s Office of Inspector General began investigating, she tampered with evidence and proposed disciplining an employee who cooperated with the investigation, according to a new OIG report. Federal taxpayers also funded her “wasteful foreign travel,” and a full eight-hour workday when she only worked about 20 minutes.
Government, Incompetence, Fraud, Waste, Corruption
Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Ajit Pai says a CBS4 probe of a government cellphone program revealed fraud, waste and abuse in the government’s Lifeline cellphone program that he called “shocking.” “The CBS4 story highlighted the fact that in places there are no safeguards, workers are signing up people using fraudulent certifications,” said Pai, one of five FCC commissioners... “There was an audible gasp as you were able to get service based on someone else’s EBT card for example.”
One federal employee leased a $53,000 take-home car with taxpayer money in apparent defiance of federal regulations and regularly billed the government for service at shops such as BMW of Fairfax. Others charged the government monthly for family members’ cell phones and high-end TV packages and Internet at home — and even at second homes. -Luke Rosiak
Democrat, Environmentalist, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Energy, Waste
The federal government spent more than $4.28 billion in stimulus money on green upgrades to public buildings — but today, it has no idea if those huge expenditures actually made the facilities any more energy efficient. “I don’t have the data to say that,” says Nick Goco, the General Services Administration’s deputy assistant inspector general for real-property audit... Though the Energy Policy Act requires federal buildings to track consumption of energy by the hour, some of the buildings receiving stimulus funds had their meters disconnected for two months or longer.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Socialism, Healthcare
The federal government cannot verify nearly $3 billion in subsidies distributed through ObamaCare, putting significant taxpayer funding "at risk," according to a new audit report. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released an audit Tuesday finding that the agency did not have an internal system to ensure that subsidies went to the right enrollees, or in the correct amounts.
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Fraud, Waste, Immigration
Two Manhattan DEA employees secretly owned a low-rent strip club in South Hackensack, NJ, that employed illegal immigrants from Brazil and Russia as dancers, the feds say in a new criminal complaint... Agent David Polos, who is now retired, and employee Glen Glover, who is on administrative leave, are also in hot water for supervising their club via computer and smartphone apps during paid DEA shifts, and for lying on government paperwork by claiming they did not have any outside employment.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Fraud, Oops, Debt
The Social Security Administration (SSA) paid at least 740 dead people $17.1 million in benefits, according to an audit by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). The audit, released Wednesday, found that the federal agency did not try to recover direct deposit payments that went into deceased persons’ bank accounts, and that the number of benefit payments to the dead is likely much higher.
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Degeneracy, Financial, Greed, Waste, Debt
The federal government issued $124.7 billion in improper payments in fiscal year 2014, representing a 17.9 percent increase, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Medicare reported the highest number of improper payments with $59.914 billion, followed by the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) at $17.7 billion, which has an error rate of 27.2 percent.
By now it is well-known that public employee contracts with generous wage and benefits are bankrupting state and local governments across the country and encircling the necks of future generations with an anvil of debt. What is almost completely unknown is that the hard-nosed union officials who negotiate lavish contracts for government workers are often paid to do so with taxpayer dollars. That is part of a widespread practice called “release time,” in which public employees are paid full-time wages and benefits by taxpayers, yet they report and answer not to government officials (or taxpayers) but to their unions.
Liberal, Union, Government, Incompetence, Character, Sex, Degeneracy, Waste, Corruption, Jobs
The red tape involved in firing federal employees is so bad that the government hasn’t even been able to fire employees who were caught watching up to six hours a day of porn at work. A recent report from CBS News finds that government employee unions and civil service rules make it almost impossible to fire employees, and it’s costing the taxpayer big bucks.
In one instance, CBS found an employee who had 7,000 pornographic files on his office computer and was tracked sometimes spending up to six hours a day watching porn at work. But this employee is still being paid as his years-long appeals process continues.
Government, Financial, Fraud, Oops, Waste, Debt
The United States continues to pay more than $300 million annually to the Afghan National Police (ANP), and some of that money is going to officers who do not actually exist, according to government officials who warn that fraud and a lack of oversight are causing U.S. taxpayer dollars to be wasted on the force.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Waste
Nearly five years after a 7.0 magnitude quake killed hundreds of thousands of its citizens, Haiti’s recovery efforts remain muddled and confused, with the whereabouts of the billions of dollars pledged by the international community an apparent mystery to the country’s leaders. “We don’t know where the money has gone,” Raymond Joseph, former ambassador of Haiti to the U.S., said Friday in an interview on Bloomberg’s “Market Makers.”
Government, Oops, Waste
The State Department issued a $450,000 grant to support women's cricket in Afghanistan even as the Islamic nation was pulling its own support for the sport. It now apparently has no women's cricket league at all. "It does not exist," Nasimullah Danish, the newly appointed chairman of Afghanistan's cricket board, told Reuters on Wednesday.
Crime, Government, Funny, Fraud, Greed, Immigration, Corruption, Convict
A U.S. immigration officer was sentenced on October 3, 2014 to two and a half years in federal prison, for accepting bribes in the form of cash and egg rolls from applicants seeking citizenship and green cards. Mai Nhu Nguyen, 48, served with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Santa Ana for eight years. She pleaded guilty to receiving bribes as a public official between July 2011 and May 2013. As an immigration service officer, Nguyen had the authority to approve or deny immigration applications.
The government is simply too big for President Obama to keep track of all the wrongdoing taking place on his watch, his former senior adviser, David Axelrod, told MSNBC. “Part of being president is there’s so much beneath you that you can’t know because the government is so vast,” he explained.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Waste, Socialism, Healthcare
Serco, a private contracting firm paid more than $1 billion to process paper Obamacare applications, paid employees to do nothing. They also processed a tiny fraction of the applications they originally projected. Employees have been coming forward for several months with reports of the contract company’s behavior. In a local report from Missouri’s KMOV, Serco employees told reporters they spent their office hours playing Pictionary and 20 Words.
Government, Financial, Oops, Waste, Debt
The Drug Enforcement Administration paid an Amtrak secretary $854,460 over nearly 20 years to obtain confidential information about train passengers, which the DEA could have lawfully obtained for free through a law enforcement network, The Associated Press has learned.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Debt, Jobs
Dozens of federal employees at an obscure agency that handles appeals of patent applications went years with so little work to do that they collected salaries — and even bonuses — while they surfed the Internet, did laundry, exercised and watched television, an investigation has found. The employees, paralegals making $60,000 to $80,000 a year, were idle with full knowledge of their immediate bosses and multiple layers of managers...
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste
Six years ago the Social Security Administration embarked on an aggressive plan to replace outdated computer systems overwhelmed by a growing flood of disability claims. Nearly $300 million later, the new system is nowhere near ready and agency officials are struggling to salvage a project racked by delays and mismanagement, according to an internal report commissioned by the agency... "The DCPS project is adrift, the scope of the project is ambiguous, the project has been poorly executed, and the project's development lacks leadership"...
Government Clown: GSA
"Meetings are good to have in between breaks," the clown declares... "Government -- if you think the problems we create are bad, just wait until you see our solutions."
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Socialism, Theft
Medicare lost 6.7 billion dollars to fraud and error in 2010, according to a new inspector’s general report. Something close to that number is likely lost every year, and NPR explains how this happens: of the claims examined overall, more than half “were billed at the wrong rate or lacked documentation to justify the service.”... But in its reply to the findings, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs Medicare, said it doesn’t plan to review the billings of doctors who almost always charge for the most expensive visits because it isn’t cost-effective to do so.
“NYTimes Confirms: Massive Fraud at USDA in Pigford; Breitbart Vindicated,” blared the headline on Breitbart’s eponymous website.
Environmentalist, Warming, Government, Funny, Fear, Demagoguery, Academia, Waste
Columbia University has received millions in taxpayer funds to create games depicting horrible scenarios that could come about as a result of climate change, including a series of mock voicemails of people screaming, gasping for air and being swept away by waves. Other callers include a man screaming as he is suddenly swallowed up by a giant tsunami and a woman desperately gasping for air because she is “Out of CO2 credits.”
The GSA Mashup: Government Waste
“The details that have come to light about a General Services Administration Conference held in Las Vegas have raised serious questions in the minds of the American people about how government is using their tax dollars.
Environmentalist, Warming, Liberal, Government, Degeneracy, Science, Academia, Waste, Communism, Theft
The National Science Foundation (NSF) gave nearly $5 million to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to create scenarios based on America’s actions on climate change, including a utopian future where everyone rides a bike and courts forcibly take property from the wealthy... In the scenario where Americans “shift our values,” people live in hippie-like communes after “youth culture” convinces the world to give up their cars and eat vegetarian.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison project is similar to the $5.6 million the NSF awarded to Columbia University to record “voicemails from the future” that paint a picture of an earth destroyed due to climate change.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Waste, Socialism, Healthcare, Regulation
The government may be paying incorrect subsidies to more than 1 million Americans for their health plans in the new federal insurance marketplace and has been unable so far to fix the errors, according to internal documents and three people familiar with the situation. The problem means that potentially hundreds of thousands of people are receiving bigger subsidies than they deserve.
Democrat, Hypocrisy, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Oops, Waste, Socialism, Healthcare
Employees at an ObamaCare processing center in Missouri with a contract worth $1.2 billion are reportedly getting paid to do nothing but sit at their computers. “Their goals are set to process two applications per month and some people are not even able to do that,” a whistleblower told KMOV-TV, referring to employees hired to process paper applications for ObamaCare enrollees... “They’re told to sit at their computers and hit the refresh button every 10 minutes, no more than every 10 minutes,” the employee said. “They’re monitored, to hopefully look for an application.”
Federal Government Worker: American Idle
The footage follows the release of a video clip featuring a GSA employee named Hank Terlaje at the same convention strumming a ukulele and belting out an ode to high-spending office culture... Roll like Neely. I'll never be under OIG investigation.
Crime, Government, Fraud, Greed, Corruption, Theft
Postal employees have spent thousands of taxpayer dollars on gambling, bills and other personal expenses, according to a series of reports by the U.S. Postal Service inspector general... One manager, who was not identified in the report, used her travel card to withdraw $32,000 in cash so she could gamble, according to the inspector general.
Remember when the Obama Administration paid gay men $400,000 to cruise the Argentinian bars to discover why gay men engage in risky behavior while drunk? Well they did, and the fun didn’t end there, apparently. More recently, the brave researchers at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute (where else?) obtained half a million dollars in federal stimulus money to ponder the ramifications of – oh, how can I say this – man parts that don’t respond well to faulty condom application skills. -Emily Schrader
Hypocrisy, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Fraud, Waste, Corruption, Theft
A high-ranking investigator in charge of rooting out fraud by Treasury Department employees was himself fraudulently drawing simultaneous salaries from both the military and the Treasury. The same investigator then petitioned the government for a full disability retirement. He also pretended to be a peace officer and lied about it, all while racking up massive debts and filing for bankruptcy, according to documents obtained by the Washington Examiner. Richard Todd Ardis worked at the Department of the Treasury Office of the Inspector General starting in 2003, for most of that time at the rank of Assistant Special Agent in Charge.
Hypocrisy, Crime, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Greed, Waste, Debt, Jobs, Theft
The assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Public Debt who supervised 108 employees in the bureau's West Virginia office “was committing egregious time and attendance fraud," depriving taxpayers of nearly $100,000 in salary for hours she did not work, according to one of several Treasury Department inspector general documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Liberal, Government, Guns, Incompetence, Financial, Greed, Waste
An audit has charged a Philadelphia gun buyback program, which provided grocery gift cards in exchange for weapons, misused more than $450,000 in grant funds from the federal government... According to the audit, PSN’s Executive Director Raymond Jones, the organization’s sole employee, gave himself a $85,065 pay increase over a two year period. The increase brought his total salary to $287,565... the organization could not account for 280 gift cards which were not traded for a weapon.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste, Debt
Between 2002 and 2012, federal agencies spent more than half a trillion dollars ($688 billion) on payments that should never have been made. Every year, according to their own record-keeping, the agencies that administer major federal programs are now paying out more than $100 billion improperly, and even though they're aware of the problem, they recover only a tiny fraction for taxpayers. This adds up to huge losses for the U.S. Treasury.
Government, Sex, Financial, Funny, Waste
The federal government is spending $224,863 to test custom-fitted condoms and validate a self-reporting penis measurement system for commercial use.
When asked by ABC’s Jeff Zeleny on Yahoo News’ “Power Players” where the nearly $700 million dollars in taxpayer money went, David Montoya, the HUD inspector general replied, “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Government, Incompetence, Sex, Financial, Funny, Waste, Debt
A government report released Monday says Medicare is paying out-sized amounts for male vacuum erection systems compared to non-Medicare payers. The inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Servicesfound that Medicare payments for the devices remain "grossly excessive," or more than twice as much as the Department of Veterans Affairs and consumers on the Internet pay.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste, Healthcare, Debt
According to the HHS FY 2013 financial report releasedin mid-December, last year HHS improperly spent a total of $65.3 billion under all its programs, an increase from the $64.8 billion misspent in 2012.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste, Theft
The district attorney for the Southern District of New York has stated that 25 Russian diplomats and 24 spouses tried to get Medicaid benefits by lying about their income and claiming that their children were citizens. For years, they got away with it, actually netting $1.5 million in benefits according to the DA.
Government, Degeneracy, Oops, Waste
The Popular Romance Project has received nearly $1 million from the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) since 2010 to "explore the fascinating, often contradictory origins and influences of popular romance as told in novels, films, comics, advice books, songs, and internet fan fiction, taking a global perspective—while looking back across time as far as the ancient Greeks."
The General Motors bailout may have cost the government $10 billion, but GM CEO Dan Akerson rejects any suggestion that the company should compensate for the losses. He says Treasury officials took the same risk assumed by anyone who purchases stock.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $2.7 million to study why lesbians are at a higher “risk for hazardous drinking.” The University of Illinois has received grants since 2009 for its project, "Cumulative Stress and Hazardous Drinking in a Community of Adult Lesbians," which aims to develop “culturally sensitive” strategies to prevent lesbians from being drunks.
Government, Character, Financial, Waste, Debt
While the rest of the government prepared to shut down this fall, the State Department was busy stocking up on embassy liquor supplies. In September, the final month of the fiscal year, the State Department spent about $180,000 — and racked up a total of more than $400,000 for the whole year, three times the entire liquor tab for all of 2008.
Government, Incompetence, Character, Financial, Waste, Debt
At the end of September, the federal government's fiscal year was drawing to a close, the threat of a shut down was increasing, and the State Department was shopping for art. Four contracts were awarded in the last two weeks of September, including $1,000,000 for a granite sculpture by Irish-born artist Sean Scully to be installed at the new U.S. Embassy in London. Notice of the awards was posted Sunday afternoon of Thanksgiving weekend on the Federal Business Opportunities website.
Tax, Government, Character, Financial, Waste, Debt
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Director George Cohen is resigning only days after learning he is a target of a congressional inquiry spurred by a Washington Examiner series. The Examiner series reported that FMCS employees spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on luxuries and that top officials retaliated against employees who questioned the spending.
Tax, Government, Character, Financial, Waste, Debt
A group of federal officials skipped chilly Washington this month for a taxpayer-funded trip to the Virgin Islands in the name of protecting the world’s coral reef. The organizer, the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force, isn’t saying much about the total cost or reasons for the trip or why officials chose the St. Croix beachfront resort Buccaneer Hotel (made famous by an episode of TV’s "The Bachelor") as their destination... "Gracious, elegant, legendary" is how the 17th-century resort bills itself.
Government, Sex, Degeneracy, Energy, Waste, Regulation
It’s become tougher to surf porn on government computers after scandals, but some workers at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission managed to find ways... One contract employee watched, in his words, two “porn type” Netflix movies during “downtime” on his 12-hour shift... Another employee repeatedly used the photo-sharing site Flickr to search for pornography while at the office. And for years, a resident inspector at the agency scoured eBay looking for pornographic images.
Workers at a Michigan battery plant built with a $150 million federal stimulus grant but never opened played games and watched movies while their wages were paid for by U.S. taxpayers, according to a government report.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste, Debt
Thanks to a multimillion-dollar federal contract, Guantanamo Bay prisoners can enroll in seminars to learn all about basic landscaping and pruning, calligraphy and Microsoft PowerPoint while the U.S. figures out what to do with them.
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Incompetence, Obama, Character, Financial, Fraud, Socialism, Lie, Healthcare
Within the new video, Obamacare Navigators in Texas yet again counsel the reporters to lie in order to avoid higher premiums. “To get a lower premium, I wouldn’t include it…that’s my money,” Obamacare Navigator Kris McCray from Change Happens in Houston, Texas, advises the reporter of the cash she ‘earned’ on the side but failed to report in her taxes. “I would just try to get that number as low as you can. It would help you qualify for more stuff as far as aid and stuff like that.”
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Brilliance, Oops, Waste, Debt
The Internal Revenue Service issued $4 billion in fraudulent tax refunds last year to people using stolen identities, with some of the money going to addresses in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Ireland, according to a Treasury report released Thursday. The IRS sent a total of 655 tax refunds to a single address in Lithuania, and 343 refunds went to a lone address in Shanghai.
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Government, Obama, Financial, Fraud, Greed, Waste, Debt, Theft
In a continuing crackdown on the federal government's Lifeline program, sometimes known as "Obama phones," the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has revealed that fraud and abuse in the program exceeded two million subscribers. New rules were established after it became clear that subscribers and providers were taking advantage of the system.
Government, Financial, Waste, Debt
The U.S. Marshal Service (USMS) wasted nearly $800,000 on silk scarves, Christmas ornaments, and other “swag,” according to an inspector general report released Tuesday. The report analyzed spending on promotional items by the Investigative Operations Division (IOD), which conducts fugitive investigations for the Marshal Service.
In 2011, the Government Accountability Office reported the 2010 shuttering of Yucca Mountain was a political maneuver and not a result of technical or safety concerns. Americans can thank Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for turning the facility into one of the most egregious symbols of government waste in U.S. history. The Nevada Democrat has used his political muscle to block the repository’s opening after the feds spent more than $12 billion and 30 years building it in his home state. The giant hole burrowed into a desolate mountain range now sits empty. -Maggie, Maggie's Notebook
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste, Debt
The government shutdown may be keeping furloughed federal workers at home, but on Monday the U.S. Army contracted to buy a mechanical bull. The $47,174 contract was awarded on Oct. 7 to Mechanical Bull Sales Inc. of State College, Penn. According to the General Services Administration (GSA) listing, the National Guard of Utah made the request for a “bull which needs to be durable and low maintenance.”
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste
A two-year investigation by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has found widespread fraud in the Social Security Administration's Disability Program. The fraud is so rampant, and disability cases have so proliferated in recent years, that the Social Security's Disability Trust Fund may run out of money in only 18 months, says Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., whose office undertook the investigation.
Union, Government, Incompetence, Funny, Oops, Waste, Jobs
In the shadow of the federal government shutdown, but wholly unrelated, about 2,500 Los Angeles County employees who are members of Service Employees International Union Local 721 walked off their jobs and marched on the streets of downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday... Despite the walkout, county services were not seriously disrupted, as managers and others filled in for their protesting colleagues.
Liberal, Government, Brilliance, Waste
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has awarded a grant of $100,000 for a multimedia game teaming players with an alien who fights to improve women’s auras damaged by negative self-esteem, discrimination and eating disorders.
Government, Brilliance, Waste
The IRS has turned over another of the parody videos agency employees made with government money — this one a send-up of Donald Trump’s “Apprentice” program, the House Ways and Means Committee said Friday. The committee said the video cost about $10,000 and was made and shown at an IRS conference.
One out of every $20 spent in a new bill to aid victims of Hurricane Sandy will go to "non-relief-related pork," says American Majority Action Spokesman Ron Meyer in an email to Breitbart News. On Friday, the U.S. Senate passed a $60.4 billion bill that contains expenditures for areas that were unaffected by the storm, including $2 million roof repairs for Smithsonian Institution museums, $150 million for Alaskan fisheries disasters, and $58 million in taxpayer dollars to plant trees on private property in areas where Sandy never touched down.
Government, Financial, Demagoguery, Waste
The federal government has spent $2.2 million studying why three quarters of lesbians are obese despite sequestration-mandated budget cuts that critics warned could “delay progress in medical breakthroughs. The National Institutes of Health awarded an additional $682,873 to Brigham and Women’s Hospital for the study on July 17.
Government, Incompetence, Oops, Communism, Media
In an effort to bring objective news to communist-controlled Cuba, over the past six years the U.S. government paid over $24 million to keep aloft a plane beaming anti-Castro TV programming to the Caribbean island. The only problem? Nobody’s watching. The Cuban government has blocked the transmissions since the AeroMarti program began in 2007, making the broadcasts impossible to see or hear in all but the most rural parts of the country.
Government, Incompetence, Character, Financial, Waste, Debt, Theft
Food stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found. The practice is so common that hundreds of 45- to 55-gallon cardboard and plastic barrels line the walls of supermarkets in almost every Caribbean corner of the city.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste, Debt
PORTLAND — Consultants say some of the $175 million spent to plan a replacement Interstate 5 bridge across the Columbia River might not have been wasted — if another bridge is planned and if it has the same alignment as the bridge plan that has now been abandoned.
Government, Incompetence, Character, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Lie, Debt
State Department officials spent $630,000 to get more Facebook "likes," prompting employees to complain to a government watchdog that the bureau was "buying fans" in social media, the agency's inspector general says. The department's Bureau of International Information Programs spent the money to increase its "likes" count between 2011 and March 2013.
Back at headquarters in downtown Washington, a staffer prepares for a meeting of the Tequila Working Group - a committee created to mollify Mexico and keep bulk tequila flowing north across the border. These are the proud scientists, rule-makers and trade ambassadors of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, one of the federal government's least-known and most peculiar corners. The bureau, known as TTB, collects taxes on booze and smokes and tells the companies that produce them how to do business - from approving beer can labels to deciding how much air a gin bottle can contain between lid and liquor. It decides which valleys in Oregon and California can slap their names on wine labels, what grapes can go into wine and which new alcoholic drinks are safe to import.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Obama, Degeneracy, Financial, Oops, Waste, Debt
The 2009 stimulus law financed a $431,363 project in Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s California district to study the “psychological distress” of homosexual fathers. The study took three years to publish its results, and it created no jobs. The study concluded that homosexual men are likely to reduce their chances of contracting HIV after becoming fathers, because there is less time for sex.
Government, Character, Fraud, Brilliance, Oops, Waste, Lie, Debt, Theft
A North Carolina postal carrier was convicted of fraud Monday after she was caught appearing on a television game show while collecting disability benefits. Cathy Wrench Cashwell was spotted during an appearance on “The Price Is Right,” reports WRAL.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste, Debt
A warehouse maintained by contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency contained secret rooms full of exercise equipment, televisions and couches, according to an internal audit. EPA’s inspector general found contractors used partitions, screens and piled up boxes to hide the rooms from security cameras in the 70,000 square-foot building located in Landover, Md. The warehouse -- used for inventory storage -- is owned by the General Services Administration and leased to the EPA for about $750,000 per year.
Liberal, Crime, Government, Waste, Convict
A new website on prison poetry was launched this week with assistance from a $75,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Prisonpoetryworkshop.org debuted online this week and features readings of poems written by incarcerated inmates. Among the titles available to listen to on the site are: “Ghetto Bastard”, “Fenced Jewels” and “A Gangster’s Prayer”.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Fraud, Immigration, Corruption, Theft
For decades the U.S. government has knowingly given illegal immigrants food stamps, according to a former certification case worker who denounced the costly practice back in the 1980s but was essentially ordered to keep a lid on it. The retired assistant case manager, Craig McNees, was in charge of vetting food-stamp applicants in north Florida and Indiana in the ’80s and says the program was infested with fraud and corruption that was perpetually ignored by management. “Illegals would come in by the vanload and we were told to give them their stuff,” McNees said. “Management knew very well they were illegal. It was so rampant that some employees would tell their illegal relatives to come get food stamps.”
So Washington gets fat, and it does so on money taken from the rest of the country -Glenn Reynolds
Environmentalist, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste, Debt
Recovery Act money was improperly spent on a roofing project that never happened and office furniture for remodeled government offices, according to a report by the Inspector General for the General Services Administration... After canceling the roof project, PBS decided to convert executive suites in the building to open office-style workspace and create mobile workspace as part of its “zero environmental footprint” goals. But according to the IG report, the project did not justify the use of recovery act funds.
Democrat, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Oops, Waste, Debt
Fragmented, overlapping and duplicative executive branch agency programs are costing taxpayers tens of billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses annually, a new government study found. The study, issued Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) following a three-year investigation, found 31 new areas of redundant or wasteful spending. Added to the findings of similar reports issued in 2011 and 2012, the new study brings the total areas of duplicative spending to more than 160, according to the report.
Government, Incompetence, Sex, Financial, Waste, Debt, Jobs
The details of a stimulus grant awarded to Indiana University to study condom use have now been released on a government website. The study, titled "Barriers to Correct Condom Use," is now completed, according to the website, and the university received $423,500 of stimulus funds to perform the study.
Government, Financial, Waste, Debt
U.S. taxpayers are funding a $30,000 study aimed at getting Latino youth to increase their "intake of tap water" and decrease their intake of sugary drinks. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued the $30,000 grant to the University of California at San Francisco in 2012. The study regards “Increasing Water Intake In Lieu of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages among Latino Youth.”
Government, Sex, Waste
The National Science Foundation awarded a grant for $876,752 to the University of Iowa to study whether there is any benefit to sex among New Zealand mud snails and whether that explains why any organism has sex.
Imagine thousands of government employees reporting to work each morning at their government offices and then doing no government work. They use government workspace, government telephones and government computers, all while working on projects unknown and unidentified to their government employers. Welcome to the common practice of "official time." Sometimes called "release time," it's a mechanism by which the government pays union officials to work on union matters during their government workdays. This mechanism—enshrined in law and contracts—is an enormous subsidy to public-employee unions, who defend it fiercely.
Government, Financial, Oops, Waste, Debt
Rep. Charles Boustany, Jr. (R,, La.), a member of the House Ways and Means subcommittee, ripped the Internal Revenue Service Monday on Fox News after news broke of “training videos” with “Star Trek” and “Gilligan’s Island” themes that cost taxpayers upwards of $60,000.
Government, Degeneracy, Financial, Funny, Science, Brilliance, Waste, Debt
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $384,949 grant to Yale University for a study on
Democrat, Environmentalist, Liberal, Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Debt
An Inspector General’s report from the Department of Energy (DOE) recently revealed that the LG Chem auto battery plant in Holland, Michigan “inappropriately claimed and was reimbursed for labor costs that did not support the purpose/objective” of a government grant. According to the IG’s office, this included the costs for staffers to perform “volunteer activities, play games and watch movies during regular work hours.” The IG points the finger at LG Chem and DOE, saying Department officials did not establish appropriate oversight protections into the $142 million grant that was awarded to LG Chem to build the Holland plant.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste, Debt
The Federal-State Unemployment Insurance program paid out $10.3 billion in benefits in 2012 to people who should not have received the money, according to the Department of Labor (DOL). The data provided on the government website, paymentaccuracy.gov, shows those payments amount to 11.42 percent of all the unemployment insurance checks handed out – an increase from 11.36 percent in 2011 and in excess of the government’s “target” for overpayments of 9.66 percent.
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste, Immigration, Healthcare, Debt
Medicare payments to health care providers for services rendered to illegal aliens totaled more than $91.6 million from 2009 to 2011, a new report released by the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General revealed. The $91.6 million in claims went toward services for a 2,575 illegal aliens.
"It's unsettling and disturbing that this much chicanery might be taking place. It causes people to lose confidence in their government," said Rep. Danny Davis, D.-Ill., the ranking Democrat on the panel.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste, Debt
After signing a 10-year lease and spending more than $80 million on a site envisioned as the United States’ diplomatic hub in northern Afghanistan, American officials say they have abandoned their plans, deeming the location for the proposed compound too dangerous.
Government, Character, Financial, Waste, Debt
The Interior Department apparently spent $222,000 to renovate the secretary’s personal 100-square-foot bathroom, outfitting it with a $3,500 sub-zero refrigerator, $2,600 custom cabinetry, a $689 faucet and even a $65 “vintage tissue holder,” all at taxpayers’ expense.
Environmentalist, Government, Character, Financial, Fraud, Science, Bigbrother, Economy, Lie
Supporters of a Marin County oyster farmer claimed victory Tuesday after a panel of scientists concluded that National Park Service officials made errors, selectively presented information and misrepresented facts in a series of reports about his Drakes Bay shellfish operation. The findings mark the second time in a year that the Park Service has been put under a spotlight for essentially fudging data in its attempts to show that the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. harmed the environment... "I find it troubling and unacceptable that the National Park Service exaggerated the effects of the oyster population on the ... ecosystem," U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wrote in a letter Tuesday to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Crime, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste
Understaffed food stamp fraud prevention units and lax anti-fraud security on Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards have created a thriving underground market where food stamp recipients illegally sell and trade their taxpayer-funded benefits, often using online websites like Backpage.com, Craigslist, or social media.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste
The U.S. government has blown nearly $6 million on an experimental “anti-terrorism” program in New Jersey that encourages the public to send tips via text message from their cellular phones. Since it was launched in mid-2011, the federally-funded “Text Against Terror” project has produced no credible tips, according to a local newspaper report that reveals the feds have poured $5.8 million into the initiative.
“I know. I am bad,” he wrote. “But Deb [his wife] and I say often, why not enjoy it while we have it and while we can. Aint going to last forever.” He had that right... “Well, Mr. Neely, it stops now,” thundered Rep. Elijah Cummings (Md.), the committee’s ranking Democrat, who was particularly offended that Neely’s wife, a private citizen, “ordered thousands of dollars’ worth of food at taxpayer expense.”... Committee Democrats and GSA officials portrayed Neely as a bad apple (albeit one who received a $9,000 bonus after his conference contretemps). Cummings said the episode gives government workers “a bad name.”
Tax, Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste
Its budget and facilities already stretched thin, the Veterans Affairs Department wasted money on two summertime training conference to the vacation hot spot of Orlando, Fla., that cost taxpayers more than $6 million and let federal employees collect freebie gifts like meals, helicopter tours, limo rides, massages and show tickets from contractors, an internal investigation has found. The VA's inspector general concluded top agency officials failed to be good stewards of taxpayer money throwing conferences last year, including spending nearly $50,000 to create a parody video featuring the late Gen. George Patton.
Government, Character, Financial, Funny, Brilliance, Waste
The General Services Administration’s Julia Hudson was ready to party last month, inviting roughly 1,200 federal employees to celebrate the second anniversary of her appointment as the scandal-scarred agency’s National Capital Region administrator. Refreshments would be served in Hudson’s seventh-floor downtown D.C. office suite, including a cake bearing her image, GSA sources familiar with the event’s planning tell POLITICO.
Government, Incompetence, Financial
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - Hundreds of people using public assistance programs have been caught trying to cheat the state out of millions of dollars. The state auditor's office found that more than 500 people defrauded the state of close to $3 million in April, May and June of this year alone. The investigation includes fraud involving public assistance money like welfare, food stamps, c hildcare services, health care benefits, public housing or cash assistance.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Debt
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials spent $2 million on an internship program that had one intern, as it failed to use properly $63 million in federal funding provided for USDA to protect itself from hackers... The intern program was an example of the USDA’s broader failure to manage 16 projects designed to protect the department from regular IT security threats.
Tax, Government, Character, Waste, Justice, Debt
As reported in May, at issue is a 9th Circuit judicial conference at the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa from August 13 - 16, 2012 that will cost taxpayers approximately one million dollars. Today The Hill reports, "GOP staff on the Budget Committee said the information it has seen so far shows the Ninth Circuit could have been pared back in May, when they started asking questions about it, with minimal charges." Staff also noted that the Ninth Circuit could have taken steps such as reserving rooms with a resort view rather than an ocean view, and taken more modest rooms. Rooms reserved range from $650 a day to $1,500 a day.
On some days, the pilots with Great Lakes Airlines fire up a twin-engine Beechcraft 1900 at the Ely, Nev., airport and depart for Las Vegas without a single passenger on board. And the federal government pays them to do it. Federal statistics reviewed by The Associated Press show that in 2010, just 227 passengers flew out of Ely while the airline got $1.8 million in subsidies. The travelers paid $70 to $90 for a one-way ticket. The cost to taxpayers for each ticket: $4,107.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Waste
The Government Accountability Office has identified $460 million dollars in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamp, benefits that went to households with incomes over the federal SNAP eligibility limits. The recently released report explains that for fiscal year 2010, states which have expanded eligibility for SNAP through broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE) made 473,000 additional households eligible SNAP benefits, resulting in an estimated $38 million a month in extra costs, or $460 million in total.
Government, Oops, Waste
WASHINGTON, D.C. (WUSA) -- The U.S. Government won't explain, but a 9 News Now investigation has found $30 million in unreported bonuses for fiscal year 2011 - making the already troubled General Services Administration's total bonus pool nearly $44 million. "Just outrageous," said U.S. Rep John Mica, Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. "All put on the taxpayers tab. There are very serious problems for GSA. "
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops, Energy
n audit conducted by the Energy Department’s Office of Inspector General was "unable to locate" $500,000 worth of equipment purchased with stimulus money by a recipient of funds distributed through the deparment's “Advanced Batteries and Hybrid Components Program,” according to an audit report published by the OIG.
Government, Incompetence, Sex, Corruption
Treasury Department officials have been cited for soliciting prostitutes, breaking conflict-of-interest rules and accepting gifts from corporate executives, according to the findings of official government investigations.
Government, Character, Financial, Waste, Debt
Rep. Sandy Adams, R-Fla., announced a whistle blower report that an obscure agency in the Commerce Department, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), spent millions of taxpayer dollars on a conference near Disney World. “According to the information I have received, the NIST MEP most recently spent anywhere between three and five million dollars on an annual conference at a resort near Walt Disney World in Florida,” Adams wrote in a letter to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Fla., in which she requested a hearing into the matter.
Mr. Schuelke’s Report chronicles significant prosecutorial misconduct in a highly publicized investigation and prosecution brought by the Public Integrity Section against an incumbent United States Senator. The government’s ill-gotten verdict in the case not only cost that public official his bid
for re-election, the results of that election tipped the balance of power in the United States Senate.
Hypocrisy, Government, Character, Education, Greed, Waste
At the Vegas retreat in 2010, a Waterloo teacher “used taxpayer money at a Hooters restaurant, and others bought $30 steaks and submitted receipts that weren’t itemized so the district had no way of knowing what was bought,” reports IowaWatchdog.org. “In all, the district spent $32,910 (on the two trips), which included airfare, hotel rooms and registration for the conferences to train staff on ways to improve schools with high poverty and large minority-student populations.”
Government, Character, Financial, Greed, Waste, Debt
Hawaii, here they come. Federal judges in the 9th Circuit appear to be going ahead with plans to host their annual conference in Maui, defending the sunny location as cost-effective despite concerns from lawmakers. Sens. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa -- who had complained about the scheduled August conference several weeks ago and estimated it could cost more than $1 million -- have demanded details about the trip, on the heels of the scandal surrounding one agency's lavish Las Vegas conference.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste
Ninety-five high-ranking employees at the General Services Administration who are assigned to work from home racked up $750,000 in travel expenses over nine months, documents show, prompting concerns from agency officials and a review of the expenses... “100 virtuals and most of them with some pretty serious grades,” Neely wrote, referring to the employees’ General Schedule status. “[W]ell this is a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.”
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste
Jack Hayes, the director of the National Weather Service, stepped down Friday in response to an investigation that top officials at the weather service had misappropriated $43.8 million by giving bonuses and extensions to contractors without proper justification... The investigators said there may be other contracts that provide additional awards from 2008, 2009 and 2010 but that NOAA was unable to “provide a complete and reliable list when requested by the Office of Inspector General.”
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste
The state of West Virginia is using $24 million in federal economic stimulus money to put high-powered Internet computer routers in small libraries, elementary schools and health clinics, even though the pricey equipment is designed to serve major research universities, medical centers and large corporations, a Gazette-Mail investigation has found... The Cisco 3945 series routers, which cost $22,600 each, are built to serve "tens of thousands" of users or device connections, according to a Cisco sales agent. The routers are designed to serve a minimum of 500 users.
Mica released a partial transcript of an interview with a GSA employee who said several employees went to Hawaii on a Saturday and returned the following Friday for a one-hour ribbon cutting ceremony. "That was the official reason?" the IG office asked. "That was the official reason, yeah," the employee replied, adding that these trips are "fairly frequent." When the IG office suggested that the employees were working hard the whole time, the GSA employee replied, "I doubt it."
Crime, Government, Financial, Theft
The former financial officer for the small northern Illinois city of Dixon stole millions of dollars more than originally thought, federal prosecutors said Tuesday as they announced plans to try to seize her trucks, boats, horses and even unborn foals she owns. A federal grand jury on Thursday returned an indictment charging Rita Crundwell with one count of wire fraud for allegedly siphoning more than $53 million from the city of 16,000 since 1990 into a secret account she controlled.
Government, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Corruption
(CBS News) WASHINGTON - On the heels of the government's embarrassing scandal in Las Vegas involving the General Services Administration, or GSA, comes word that a high-ranking Homeland Security official has pleaded guilty in a travel fraud ring that defrauded taxpayers out of at least $600,000.
Election, Government, Fraud, Corruption
A former county appraiser who secretly and improperly slashed tens of millions of dollars from the taxable values of Westside properties in late 2010 said he did it in the hope that wealthy homeowners receiving the reductions would contribute money to Los Angeles County Assessor John Noguez.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Theft
It was a simple scam: Coleen Newton-White, a government contractor, and her husband would take General Services Administration credit cards from the motor pool at Ft. Monroe, Va., and use them to sell fuel at a discount to cash customers who pulled up to service stations five at a time. Between 2008 and 2010, the scheme netted the couple almost $300,000, according to court records.
Government, Incompetence, Science, Oops, Waste, Drugs
Taxpayers may feel kind of blue when they discover their dollars went to fund a study to determine rats like to bop to the music of Miles Davis while hopped up on cocaine. The study, which was performed at Albany Medical College, drew jeers from the animal rights group In Defense of Animals and landed it on its top ten list of Real Ridiculous Research. The research found that sober rats don’t really like music that much. After the silence, the rats liked Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” more than Miles Davis’s iconic jazz tune “Four.” But when the rats were given doses of cocaine, their tasted shifted and they gravitated toward the jazz.
Officials at the General Services Administration invented fake awards as an excuse to hold taxpayer-funded dinner events at conferences, according to an interview transcript obtained by Roll Call. At one such event, GSA bestowed the “jackass award” on an employee, a GSA employee told the agency’s Office of Inspector General, according to the transcript.
Crime, Government, Financial, Fraud, Corruption, Jobs
Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s administration has fired 61 city employees for collecting unemployment benefits while working for the District government, city officials said Tuesday. The city’s Department of Employment Services, which oversees the jobless-compensation program, said in February that dozens of current and former city workers had received the fraudulent payments.
Democrat, Liberal, Crime, Government, Obama, Financial, Fraud, Waste, Video, Debt
In another video, an "angry clown" -- either a GSA employee or a professional hired by the organizers -- talks about making work more challenging for other people. "Meetings are good to have in between breaks," the clown declares. "Government -- if you think the problems we create are bad, just wait until you see our solutions."
Democrat, Liberal, Incompetence, Financial, Waste, Debt
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday he regrets the cost to taxpayers for his weekend trips to his California home, but says it’s important “just to get your mind straight and your perspective straight.” Panetta said he’d try to find some savings, with each round trip costing approximately $32,000. “I regret that it does, you know, that it does add costs that the taxpayer has to pick up,” Panetta said during a Pentagon briefing Monday, speaking publicly for the first time about the flight costs.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Brilliance, Waste
The government spent at least $205,075 in 2010 to “translocate” a single bush in San Francisco that stood in the path of a $1.045-billion highway-renovation project that was partially funded by the economic stimulus legislation President Barack Obama signed in 2009.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Waste, Debt
The General Services Administration inspector general was told the agency spent as much as $330,000 to move an employee from Denver to Hawaii, an example of millions of dollars wasted in relocation costs. The latest example of GSA waste to become public came from a transcript of an interview between an inspector general's investigator and an employee who handled relocations. The Associated Press on Wednesday obtained a transcript of the interview, which took place in March 2011. "I mean that blew me away when I saw how much it costs to relocate somebody. It's crazy. It's astronomical," said the employee in the interview.
NOAA law enforcement collected close to $100,000,000 in fines and seized goods from fishermen over the past several years. The Department of Commerce IG investigated and found that only about $60M could be accounted for, while some $40M is just plain gone. This is not taxpayer money, but money taken in huge chunks from fishermen for infractions, some very minor. Claims by the fishermen of coercion and extortion were validated by the IG.
Government, Incompetence, Financial, Oops
$120 million paid out in retirement and disability payments to deceased federal workers. According to the Inspector General of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, that’s in line with the annual average.
Government, Incompetence
An August 10, 2009 National Endowment for the Arts conference call in which artists were asked to help support President Obama's agenda — a call that at least one good government group called "inappropriate" — has prompted the White House to issue new guidelines to prevent such a call from ever happening again.
Government, Incompetence, Sex, Financial, Waste
First there were $16 muffins and $8 cups of coffee; then came emails suggesting that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. fudged the truth about “Operation Fast and Furious”; and now it’s a Justice Department official using taxpayer funds to “facilitate a physical relationship with a woman in Florida.”
Government, Incompetence, Funny, Waste
The WMSRDC recently purchased and transferred homeland security equipment to these counties — including 13 snow cone machines at a total cost of $11,700. The machines were funded by a grant from the Michigan Homeland Security Program. The request for a snow cone machine came from another county, but all 13 counties received them.
Government, Waste
U.S. Justice Department agencies spent too much for food at conferences, in one case serving $16 muffins
This weekend, judges, lawyers and staff of the country's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will convene in Maui, Hawaii, for a government-funded conference that they refused to cancel despite pressure from Republican lawmakers who balked at the junket's $1 million price tag.
Government, Incompetence, Sex, Financial, Waste
D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan has accused a District HIV/AIDS service provider of spending nearly $330,000 in federal tax dollars to open a strip club. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, Nathan said Miracle Hands Inc. promised the city it was using the cash to renovate a warehouse in Northeast for use as a job training center for residents with HIV/AIDS. Instead, the warehouse was turned into the Stadium Club, a strip club that continues to operate, the suit says.
Democrat, Government, Waste
The staffer said Akaka is the only senator who will attend. The Democratic committee staffers used taxpayer funding to travel to Hawaii a full week before their committee’s hearing date. When TheDC called the committee’s Washington, D.C., office Thursday afternoon, a different staffer who answered the phone said all the committee’s communications staffers are already in Maui.
Government, Incompetence, Funny, Waste
On some days, the pilots with Great Lakes Airlines fire up a twin-engine Beechcraft 1900 at the Ely, Nev., airport and depart for Las Vegas without a single passenger on board. And the federal government pays them to do it. Federal statistics reviewed by The Associated Press show that in 2010, just 227 passengers flew out of Ely while the airline got $1.8 million in subsidies. The travelers paid $70 to $90 for a one-way ticket. The cost to taxpayers for each ticket: $4,107.
Government, Corruption
WASHINGTON — A top Labor Department official in charge of helping veterans find jobs resigned this week amid findings that he had steered work to favored contractors.
Government, Financial, Scandal, Fraud
A special investigation by The Daily Caller has discovered that a State Department contract specialist participated in awarding more than $52 million in taxpayer-funded contracts to a company owned and operated by her husband and daughter.
"When you are given an FBI BlackBerry, it's for official use," Ms Will said. "It's not to text the woman in another office who you found attractive or to send a picture of yourself in a state of undress."
Government, Character, Scandal, Fraud, Education
Award-winning gains by Atlanta students were based on widespread cheating by 178 named teachers and principals, said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday. His office released a report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that names 178 teachers and principals – 82 of whom confessed – in what's likely the biggest cheating scandal in US history.
Government, Incompetence, Obama, Financial
In what appears to be a gross Obama administration oversight, former Bush administration political officials are still receiving taxpayer-funded credit cards in the mail.
Environmentalist, Warming, Financial, Fraud, Science, Greed
The NASA scientist who once claimed the Bush administration tried to "silence" his global warming claims is now accused of receiving more than $1.2 million from the very environmental organizations whose agenda he advocated. In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., a group claims NASA is withholding documents that show James Hansen failed to comply with ethics rules and financial disclosures regarding substantial compensation he earned outside his $180,000 taxpayer-paid position as director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
Government, Funny, Waste
Her proposals describes the sculpture this way: "A 10-foot fairy, using an American Toad as 'transportation,' scurries to the entrance of the station. The interior of the toad is illuminated and the sounds of nature emanate from his throat." She said that nature inspired her.
Government, Character, Sex, Degeneracy, Financial, Fraud
Government Accountability Office (GAO) listed multiple abuses in the federal purchase card program used by federal employees. These abuses included a $13,000 taxpayer-funded steak house dinner, use of Internet dating services, purchase of erotica products, Girls Gone Wild Videos, and five season tickets to the New Orleans Saints.
Government, Fraud
The Transportation Security Administration “cooked the books” to understate the costs of using federal workers rather than private contractors to screen airport passengers, a key TSA critic in Congress charged Wednesday.
Federal auditors found the agency erred in its cost comparisons, and a skeptical lawmaker said TSA did so to stop the use of private contractors to do screening — an option Congress wrote into the 2001 law that created the agency.
Government, Incompetence, Financial
The U.S. government has 15 different agencies overseeing food-safety laws, more than 20 separate programs to help the homeless and 80 programs for economic development.
These are a few of the findings in a massive study of overlapping and duplicative programs that cost taxpayers billions of dollars each year, according to the Government Accountability Office.
Government, Incompetence, Degeneracy, Financial, Adult, Gay
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) subsidized a study attempting to find out if a gay man’s penis size has any correlation with his sexual health.
GSA Party Las Vegas 2010!!!
"Mr. Chairman, on the advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutional privileges," Neely repeatedly responded Monday to questions about the scandal
GSA Party Hawaii 2011!!!
At the House hearing concerning the GSA’s extravagant spending, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican, asked current GSA officials as well as a former one some pointed questions. The first was "What does it take to actually be fired from the GSA?"
GSA Party Palm Springs 2010!!!
GSA employee: They had a carver. How do you pick up prime rib with your fingers? They had oysters on the half shell. Yeah, you can pick them up, but why are we eating that?...
The IRS Gone Wild 2010!!!
The IRS Commissioner responsible for allowing the agency to spend $4.1 million on a lavish 2010 conference at Disneyland said it was not the best use of taxpayer funds and such conferences would not be held today.