War Profiteering: Deeper In Crap

MA,

now that you have had your time on the ole' soapbox.

pray tell how we gonna have a party system without cronyism?

you mean that your buddy Democrats are not in the same game?

Oh I know we can legislate that political parties and politicians be guaranteed funding from the public coffers. Sounds like a more corrupt system in the long-run.

Neo

As a Neo, you haven't been around long enough.

I have no interest in Republicans or Democrats at all.

I have no interest in redundant arguments concerning "the other side does exactly the same thing".

What is on this Topic has nothing to do with Republicans and Democrats at all.

It has to do with the current war profiteering schemes and corrupt actions by the incumbent president, the vice-president and crony companies, which are trackable and self-evident.

You could take yourself to the Political Mudpit if you wish, but I don't hang out there, sorry.

MA,

haven't been around long enuf? LOL!

whatz that mean?

I would not have been expressing my disinterest in Republicans and Democrats for the umpteenth time. That is all.

Progress is being made on the enquiry into cronies ripping off US taxpayers for Iraq gas prices - or is it all going to be obfuscated?


Chronology

Jan. 16, 2004
The Defense Department Inspector General has referred the Halliburton fuel contract to the Defense Criminal Investigative Service for investigation of possible criminal violations.

Jan. 15, 2004
One day after the Defense Contract Audit Agency announced it has referred Halliburton�s gasoline contract to the Inspector General for investigation into potential wrongdoing, Rep. Waxman reveals new details about the unusual facts surrounding the decision to use Altanmia, an obscure Kuwaiti company, to import hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gasoline into Iraq at grossly inflated prices.

Jan. 6, 2004
Reps. Waxman and Dingell urge the Army Corps of Engineers to reverse its decision to excuse Halliburton from justifying the pricing of gasoline imported into Iraq.

Dec. 19, 2003
Reps Waxman and Dingell ask Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to produce documents regarding subcontractors hired by Halliburton to import gasoline into Iraq.

Dec. 18, 2003
In a significant policy letter, Reps. Waxman and Dingell criticize the Administration's procurement strategy for Iraq.

Dec. 10, 2003
New information from the Army Corps of Engineers raises questions about the prices Halliburton and its subcontractor are charging at every step of importing gasoline from Kuwait into Iraq, including why they are buying gasoline for far more than the wholesale price, charging many times what it costs other companies to import gasoline into Iraq, and adding a significant markup to each gallon.

Nov. 25, 2003
Rep. Waxman, Sen. Lieberman, and Rep. Dingell ask the DOD IG to investigate the high gasoline prices being charged by Halliburton and the appropriateness of using $725 million from the Development Fund for Iraq to pay these inflated fuel costs.


This is the tip of the iceberg phenomenon at work, right here right now.

You mean this WAS a war for oil after all???!!!


All Government is aggression - Proudhoun

Not a bad summary regarding Halliburton and Bechtel, penned in Australia (of all places - one of the key allies in the COW [Coaltion of the Willing])...

www.greenleft.org.au...

Neither is the bidding process accountable nor is the performance any good at all, but the dollars just keep coming...



( I just noticed the Topic Title that I revised from the original a year or more ago is quite pertinent today to the sh*thouse performance on sewerage explained in the article above ).

[edit on 1-5-2005 by MaskedAvatar]

The really sick thing is that there was 12 billion dollars originally allocated for the rebuilding of the Iraqi Infrastructure, their water, food, roads adn bridges, hospitals, etc. has recently been handed over to the new Iraqi Defense budget. They lost a couple billion of it, then gave the rest of it to the military due to their inability to traina nd regulate Iraqi security forces. This was money specificly allocated by congress to help the Iraqi people rebuild what we destroyed there. There are people in Iraq who haven't had power and clean water since we invaded. Sickening.

Edit:
Take a look, I foudn this right after I posted my reply...

[edit on 2-5-2005 by twitchy]
ed. to shorten link

[edit on 31-7-2005 by DontTreadOnMe]

White House executive orders

The one in 'question'

Executive Orders are law and non-reviewable.

Wikipedia
An executive order is a legally binding edict issued by a member of the executive branch of a government, usually the head of that branch.

The term is mostly used by the United States Government. In other countries, similar edicts may be known as decrees.

Most states has them, many expire within 60-90 of the new governor taking office IF they are not re-issued or otherwise extended.

Executive Orders are (in my opinion) quasi-law and probably unconstitutional. No one that has ever challenged the legality of them has stopped them.

Some day as President will issue one affecting the courts and only then will the courts declare something illegal about them.

They are sneaky and not subject to debate.

More from Wiki-
Today, only those executive orders dealing with issues of national security are kept from the public.

Until the 1950s, there were no rules or guidelines outlining what the president could or could not do through an executive order. However, the Supreme Court ruled that an executive order from President Harry S. Truman that placed all steel mills in the country under federal control was invalid because it attempted to make law, rather than clarify or act to further a law put forth by the Congress or the Constitution. Presidents since this decision have generally been careful to cite which specific laws they are acting under when issuing new executive orders.

Emphasis added.

Kinda like how they charged over 28million dollars for something that would cost a normal company about 1 million dollars. Gee, wonder where that other 27 million went, and that was just ONE shipment....

Originally posted by JoeDoaks
Executive Orders are law and non-reviewable.

Wikipedia
An executive order is a legally binding edict issued by a member of the executive branch of a government, usually the head of that branch.

The term is mostly used by the United States Government. In other countries, similar edicts may be known as decrees.

Wikipedia is no good for definitions of legal terms. The only recognized source is Black's Law Dictionary.

Most lawyers agree that an Executive Order is not law and could be debated in court. However, most politicians don't want to go there because of future problems when their party is in control.

Lawyers do agree that Executive Orders do have power over the Executive Branch of government. After all, the President is the person in charge of the Executive Branch. And, the Executive branch has powers that keep broadening, such as new Secretaries to the President's Cabinet.


Also, I've been wondering, where is all the money from the oil pipeline in southern Iraq going? It's been pumping oil nonstop since the start of this war.

[edit on 5/2/05 by Qwas]

If it looks like poop, and smells like poop, it must be. Stinks over this way and must stink all the way to Crawford.

For the sake of a little more clarity-

Originally posted by Qwas

Originally posted by JoeDoaks

wikipedia cite

Wikipedia is no good for definitions of legal terms. The only recognized source is Black's Law Dictionary.

Picking nits -

The ONLY legal definition that counts is from a court case.

USC cite at Findlaw]
Stogner v. California, 539 U.S. 607, 123 S.Ct. 2446, 156 L.Ed.2d 544 (U.S. 06/26/2003)

In 1993, California enacted a new criminal statute of limitations permitting prosecution for sex-related child abuse where the prior limitations period has expired if, inter alia, the prosecution is begun within one year of a victim's report to police. A subsequently added provision makes clear that this law revives causes of action barred by prior limitations statutes. In 1998, petitioner Stogner was indicted for sex-related child abuse committed between 1955 and 1973. At the time those crimes were allegedly committed, the limitations period was three years. Stogner moved to dismiss the complaint on the ground that the Ex Post Facto Clause forbids revival of a previously time-barred prosecution. The trial court agreed, but the California Court of Appeal reversed. The trial court denied Stogner's subsequent dismissal motion, in which he argued that his prosecution violated the Ex Post Facto and Due Process Clauses. The Court of Appeal affirmed.

Held: A law enacted after expiration of a previously applicable limitations period violates the Ex Post Facto Clause when it is applied to revive a previously time-barred prosecution. California's law extends the time in which prosecution is allowed, authorizes prosecutions that the passage of time has previously barred, and was enacted after prior limitations periods for Stogner's alleged offenses had expired. Such features produce the kind of retroactivity that the Constitution forbids. First, the law threatens the kinds of harm that the Clause seeks to avoid, for the Clause protects liberty by preventing governments from enacting statutes with "manifestly unjust and oppressive" retroactive effects. Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 391. Second, the law falls literally within the categorical descriptions of ex post facto laws that Justice Chase set forth more than 200 years ago in Calder v. Bull, which this Court has recognized as an authoritative account of the Clause's scope, Collins v. Youngblood, 497 U. S. 37, 46.
. . .

[dissent]

It was the unsupported Hand observation that formed the rationale applied by many of the cases the Court cites, including all the post-Moore cases where expired limitations periods were at issue. See Fraidin, 63 F. Supp., at 276 (relying on Falter and containing no discussion of the Calder categories); Shedd, 702 P. 2d, at 268 (same); Hodgson, 108 Wash. 2d, at 667-668, 740 P. 2d, at 851 (relying on, and quoting from, Falter); Rocheleau, 404 Mass., at 130, 533 N. E. 2d, at 1334 (containing no Calder analysis but relying instead on its earlier decision in Commonwealth v. Bargeron, 402 Mass. 589, 524 N. E. 2d 829 (1988), which in turn was based on Falter); O'Neill, 118 Idaho, at 246, 796 P. 2d, at 123 (citing Falter and supplying no analysis of its own); State v. Hirsch, 245 Neb. 31, 39, 511 N. W. 2d 69, 76 (1994) (relying on Falter); Hamel, 138 N. H., at 395, 643 A. 2d, at 955 (same). Since these cases applied the methodology our Court has disavowed, they provide the majority with scant support. None of them even discussed the issue in terms of Calder's second category, much less construed that category in the manner today's decision improperly proposes. The flaw of these cases is not, as the majority argues, that they are "not perfectly consistent with modern conceptions of how legal analysis should proceed," ante, at 23; the flaw is that their method of analysis is foreclosed by this Court's precedents.


The majority turns for help to a roster of commentators who concluded that revival of expired statutes of limitations is precluded by the ex post facto guarantee. See ante, at 11-12. Some of the commentators applied the same expansive approach we have declared impermissible in Collins and Carmell. Henry Black, on whose work the Court relies the most, see ante, at 6, 7, 11, 12, openly acknowledged that the revival of expired statutes of limitations is not covered by any of the Calder categories. See Constitutional Prohibitions Against Legislation Impairing the Obligations of Contracts, and Against Retroactive and Ex Post Facto Laws §227, p. 291 (1887). Black, moreover, relied on the example of the civil statutes of limitations, which he believed could not be revived. Id., §235, at 296-297. The Court's later caselaw has rendered this interpretation questionable. See, e.g., Chase Securities Corp. v. Donaldson, 325 U. S. 304, 314-316 (1945). Other commentators relied, often with no analysis, on the Moore and Falter line of cases, which were plagued by methodological infirmities since discovered. See authorities cited ante, at 12. None of these scholars explained their conclusion by reference to Calder's second category.

There are scholars who have considered with care the meaning of that category; and they reached the conclusion stated in this dissent, not the conclusion embraced by the majority. In his treatise on retroactive legislation, William Wade defined the category as covering the law "which undertakes to aggravate a past offence, and make it greater than when committed, endeavors to bring it under some description of transgression against which heavier penalties or more severe punishments have been denounced: as, changing the character of an act which, when committed, was a misdemeanor, to a crime; or, declaring a previously committed offence, of one of the classes graduated, and designated by the number of its degree, to be of a higher degree than it was when committed." Operation and Construction of Retroactive Laws §273, pp. 317-318 (1880). Joel Prentiss Bishop's work on statutory crimes concluded that a law reviving expired prosecution "is not within any of the recognized legal definitions of an ex post facto law." Commentaries on the Law of Statutory Crimes §266, p. 294 (rev. 3d ed. 1901). The author's explanation is an apt criticism of the Court's opinion: "The punishment which it renders possible, by forbidding the defense of lapse of time, is exactly what the law provided when `the fact' transpired. No bending of language, no supplying of implied meanings, can, in natural reason, work out the contrary conclusion... . The running of the old statute had taken from the courts the right to proceed against the offender, leaving the violated without its former remedy; but it had not obliterated the fact that the law forbade the act when it was done, or removed from the doer's mind his original consciousness of guilt." Id., §266, at 294-295. In reaching his conclusion, Bishop considered, and rejected, the argument put forth by the Moore majority. Id., §266, at 295, and n. 5. This rejection does not, as the majority believes, undermine Bishop's conclusion, see ante, at 23; given Moore's infirmities, it strengthens the validity of his interpretation . . .

*H. Black, American Constitutional Law §266, p. 700 (4th ed. 1927) (hereinafter Black, American Constitutional Law)

As can be seen, Black's and any other 'source' is a resource only. What is decided as the meaning of legal terms by a court determines what those terms mean.

Common usage, unless manifestly ridiculous will generally guide a court as to the meaning of a term with the same weight as Black's or any other resource.
So, Black's is a recognized resource, not definitive.

Back to E.O.s

Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, 526 U.S. 172, 119 S.Ct. 1187, 143 L.Ed.2d 270 (U.S. 03/24/1999) 526 U.S. 172, 119 S.Ct. 1187, 143 L.Ed.2d 270, 1999.SCT.42057, 67 USLW 4189, 99 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 2104, 29 Envtl. L. Rep. 20,557

. . .
(a) The 1850 Executive Order was ineffective to terminate Chippewa usufructuary rights. The President's power to issue an Executive Order must stem either from an Act of Congress or from the Constitution itself. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 585.
. . .

Thanks for the legal interpretations, gentlemen.

With my sense of ethics I am unable to see that Presidential Executive Orders can be above the law of the land, except in cases of dictatorship.
There are certainly powers ascribed to a POTUS that would never be so delegated in other democracies, so the opportunity presents itself for exploitation, but to the extent that EOs can be signed that are AGAINST the national interest, this is open to discussion.

Bush has signed more EOs than any other POTUS in history.

Most of them have the effect of absolving his criminal administration from wrongdoing.

"Criminal" is my word, and I use it and apply it to Bush's behavior because I know what the word means and what the behavior means. Others might say he hasn't been charged so he can't be "criminal". I say they have no grounding in ethics at all.

Off-topic-

dbates- where's my flag for 'excessive posting?'

If you or any MOD is going to fine someone for explaining a minor but important point because they quoted instead of paraphrased then scour the other threads where page upon page of quotes are posted.

Be even handed

Deny ignorance

On-topic again -

The rort continues. US taxpayers should be very happy that the Bush administration's cronies have such unmatched talents in delivering on the war "effort":

www.halliburtonwatch.org...


Highlights:

Halliburton announces 284 percent increase in war profits
25 July 2005

* The increase in profits was primarily due to the Pentagon's payment of "award fees" for what military officials call "good" or "very good" work done by KBR in the Middle East for America's taxpayers and the troops.

* Despite the scandals that plague KBR's military contracts, the Pentagon awarded $70 million in "award" fees to the company, along with four ratings of "excellent" and two ratings of "very good" for the troop logistics work under the Army's LOGCAP contract.

* Audits conducted by the Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency determined that KBR had $1 billion in "questioned" expenses (i.e. expenses which military auditors consider "unreasonable") and $442 million in "unsupported" expenses (i.e. expenses which military auditors have determined contain no receipt or any explanation on how the expenses were disbursed). But the top Pentagon brass ignored these audits and rewarded KBR's work anyway.

* Halliburton's earnings announcement comes on the heels of new reports showing the Iraq and Afghan wars have already cost U.S. taxpayers $314 billion and that another ten years of war will cost $700 billion.

* In another coup for Halliburton, a federal judge this month decided that whistleblowers may not sue U.S. companies for fraud if payment for services was made in Iraqi, not U.S., money. Halliburton was paid over $1 billion in Iraqi oil money during the first 15 months of the occupation.


The talents in graft, corruption, creative accounting and flouting the law are very useful to have when a patriotic company such as Halliburton gets in behind the real agenda of the "war in Iraq" and the "war on terror".

The citizenry of America has found itself lost within the legal verbosity and culture of fear perpetuated by this administration that they will allow almost anything to pass by thier breasts without second glance; and when the media is even more fecund in expounding spurious stories of made-from-rag CEO'S living the American dream, they're too infatuated in idealism to notice.

A conscious revolution is an answer in America, but it's pretex seems impossible at the moment.

Luxifero

I heard a Halliburton PR guy offered a barrell of oil to have this thread virtually suppressed:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

(on the matter of hyperprofits and 'wonderful' news for shareholders before the proverbial hits the revolving air cooling device).

www.whitehouse.gov...

Looks like the Oil industry picked the correct administration, they are going to make a lot more money. Now all they need is another terrorist attack to complete their plan, i'm sure Cheney is all over that.

Originally posted by uNBaLaNCeD
Communism (socialism),is a reaction to out of control Capitalism.
Can U see where the US is headed?.
This is just something that is becoming more apparent to me.
MHO,so there.

Communism is something very different then socialism,coummunism is a planned economy, socialism is to help each other for a common purpose, namely a harmonious society where there is no distiction.
As many americans associate communism with socialism, the last named is being set in bad daylight.
Even though 99,9 % of the americans dont even know the true concept of these 2 words they pas judgement as a result of on going propaganda that began in the cold war period.
Americans now think being exploited( because of the 2 party system) is a good thing and every political effort to close the gap of the rich and poor is futtile, socialism is a dirty word in america.

Things are really screwed up.... in America

And the sad part is americans dont even now it.