World's Most Expensive Gas Station' Cost Taxpayers $43M

a reply to: rockintitz

They made the rules so they believe they can bend them. Rules never apply to the ones that make them or try to police them.

Cry me a river people. Same thing from Viet Nam war. Did we learn anything about war and contractors and greed? We deserve what we get from Afghnaistan.

originally posted by: EternalSolace
I wonder who got $42,500,000 dollars richer...

Oh well. That's 14,166,666 big macs that could've bought.

Or 4,250 of the homes that Utah built for the homeless.

That would be Socialism and every knows that Socialism is evil.

Well if this is not proof the wars in the middle east have not be purely in the name of corruption and the financial gain of a few select politicians and bureaucrats I dont know what is.


But I bet the majority still go on buying the BS about protecting freedoms and spreading Democracy.

Can you say Derp Derp?

a reply to: Nicorette

Great post! I'd just read the story on vice myself and was going to post about Central Asian Engineering, but you beat me to it. Although I would add, don't let the name Central Asian Engineering confuse you too much, I'd bet without any doubt there is a privately owned American company behind this somewhere.

Things like this just prove how bent and corrupt our governments have become, allowing already obscenely rich people to bleed tax payers money like this is disgusting, even more so when you think of the levels of poverty that currently exist in the US. This is nothing short of criminal, and all done in the name of greed!

When will the people finally stand up and say enough is enough?

originally posted by: jamespond
a reply to: Nicorette

When will the people finally stand up and say enough is enough?

When they're hungry.

Revolutions don't happen without hunger.

Notice how most Americans, even poor ones, are complacent. They're well fed and have entertainment shoved in every hole they've got.

It keeps them distracted so those in charge can go about robbing them blind- and once they've taken everything, they won't have a leg to stand on. That's when the people will say enough is enough- but they'll be locked in cages by then, screaming about betrayal.

originally posted by: lordcomac

originally posted by: jamespond
a reply to: Nicorette

When will the people finally stand up and say enough is enough?

When they're hungry.

Revolutions don't happen without hunger.

Notice how most Americans, even poor ones, are complacent. They're well fed and have entertainment shoved in every hole they've got.

It keeps them distracted so those in charge can go about robbing them blind- and once they've taken everything, they won't have a leg to stand on. That's when the people will say enough is enough- but they'll be locked in cages by then, screaming about betrayal.

They dont need to be locked in cages.

The masses are being fatten up and dumbed down.

By the time they wake up and smell the BS they will be to fat and loaded with health problems that can barely walk down the street to peacefully protest let alone start any sort of warfare and so dumb they will barely know what end of a gun to use.


The cage is already here.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: rockintitz

I bet most kids here wouldn't believe that only 20 years ago you never got out of your car at a gas station -- someone actually came out and pumped the gas and ran you card.

And 30 years ago the attendant walked around with a big fat roll of cash, which everyone paid with - typically getting $10 worth of gas at a time.

originally posted by: eXia7
I'm sure they constructed it with a $30,000 hammer and installed a $20,000 toilet.

It would be really interesting to see where this money is really funneled.

black market money, i.e., drug sales. That money is untraceable and freely spent on civil wars.

a reply to: lordcomac

It was not poor, hungry american boomers that protested the Viet Nam War. Violently. Everyone now is tied to the stock market now and reap profits from private contractors in war. Until we reinstate the draft and everyone is threatened with war and death, it is not going to change.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
For 43 million, it better be full-service (they pump the gas, I sit in the car) -- and my windshield and headlights get cleaned.

For 43 mil I'd want a complete service and overhaul and a bumper sticker that says 'I get topped up at Proxys oil!'

I wonder if it has a bathroom better than this.

originally posted by: WeRpeons
a reply to: PraetorianAZ

Our government can waste millions of dollars on things like this and not bat an eye. Yet a program like Social Security and Medicare in which millions of elderly people rely on is being threatened.

Kind of makes you wonder about that national debt thing..

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

I'd just bet that when it's all said and done, we'll find out that it was another one of our patriotic "private contractors" who is responsible for overcharging our govt. under the guise that privatization is always the more efficient way to get things done.

I'm betting it will end up being Halliburton or some other greed driven patriot who perpetrated this fraud in the American taxpayers.

Cronie capitalism on a global scale... Let me introduce you to my little friend, "Cronie War."

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

From the link:

"We continue to provide complete and unfettered access to TFBSO documents to SIGAR through the reading room managed by the Washington Headquarters Services. Further, we have offered to assist SIGAR in locating and contacting any former TFBSO personnel they wish to interview," Sowers said. "We welcome the continued review of this project by SIGAR."

It sounds to me like there is zero fear of any oversight. And why should they fear it? There is no oversight. Democrats and republicans will never offer us a candidate that runs on a platform of government spending oversight reform.

This story should be covered on a loop endlessly on all the television news networks for weeks until there are answers to where this money went. Instead, the media covers for our corrupt government by bombarding us with divisive partisan propaganda.

originally posted by: Flatfish
a reply to: PraetorianAZ

I'd just bet that when it's all said and done, we'll find out that it was another one of our patriotic "private contractors" who is responsible for overcharging our govt. under the guise that privatization is always the more efficient way to get things done.

I'm betting it will end up being Halliburton or some other greed driven patriot who perpetrated this fraud in the American taxpayers.

Cronie capitalism on a global scale... Let me introduce you to my little friend, "Cronie War."

I only reply to ur post because it is the most current at this time (11:50am EST). Yes, we are f'ed. God forgive us all.

originally posted by: SlowNail
Of course the DoD can't explain where the money went. Stolen for the black project slush fund.

To be accurate...Black Project Slush funds are budgeted differently and actually specified as more or less a black hole on the Gov. budget....Including Spec Ops and CIA running around Afghanistan with bags of cash to buy warlords.

Stuff like this is different in that it is a mechanism to pay "private" American contractors...aka the "military industrial complex"...Private American Military Contractors with tentacles sufficiently deep into the Gov and Military where they know they can steal tax payer dollars without consequence. The same folks that cheer for war on a regular basis because they know it is another pay day.

And if you want to know where the money went...ask Paul Brinkley.

He is the one that built and billed the Gas Station

The Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) is a division of the U.S. Department of Defense established in 2006 to stabilize the post-invasion Iraqi economy, reduce unemployment, and attract foreign investors to Iraq. In 2009, TFBSO expanded operations to include Afghanistan. TFBSO founder and former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Paul Brinkley described TFBSO stating: “We do capitalism. We’re about helping companies make money.”[1]

As US troops withdrew from Iraq, TFBSO ended its operations in that country.

TFBSO founder Paul Brinkley joined Department of Defense in 2004 as co-director of the Business Transformation Agency. Before joining the Defense Department, he was Chief Information Officer and senior vice president at JDS Uniphase[2] and served on the economic development advisory council to the Fujian Provincial Government in the People's Republic of China.[3] Brinkley left TFBSO in June 2011 and soon after was named Chief Executive Officer of North America Western Asia Holdings, his self-created firm.

en.wikipedia.org...

Paul Andrew Brinkley (born November 15, 1966 in Dallas, Texas) is an American businessman and government official. Brinkley is the co-founder and current CEO of North America Western Asia Holdings, an investment and business development firm based in Washington, D.C. Brinkley served as the United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under Secretaries of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates from 2004 to 2011.

en.wikipedia.org...

And it looks like he funneled the money from this gas station and undoubtedly other taxpayer scams into his current venture..

North America Western Asia Holdings, his self-created firm.

Just a peek at how these things work.

North America Western Asia Holdings, (NAWAH) is an investment firm founded in 2011. It was established by Hyatt Hotels executive chairman Thomas Pritzker and former Pentagon official Paul Brinkley to build businesses in the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa.[1]

en.wikipedia.org...

originally posted by: MotherMayEye
a reply to: PraetorianAZ

From the link:

"We continue to provide complete and unfettered access to TFBSO documents to SIGAR through the reading room managed by the Washington Headquarters Services. Further, we have offered to assist SIGAR in locating and contacting any former TFBSO personnel they wish to interview," Sowers said. "We welcome the continued review of this project by SIGAR."

It sounds to me like there is zero fear of any oversight. And why should they fear it? There is no oversight. Democrats and republicans will never offer us a candidate that runs on a platform of government spending oversight reform.

This story should be covered on a loop endlessly on all the television news networks for weeks until there are answers to where this money went. Instead, the media covers for our corrupt government by bombarding us with divisive partisan propaganda.

If I'm not mistaken, Claire McCaskill (D) Kansas, will be chairing a congressional committee investigating this gas station in the very near future.

They may very well get some "Oversight." At least so long as that term is only defined as "someone over them seeing what they did."

Whether or not WE get some accountability, that's the question.

Coincidentally, I think it's accountability they have no fear of, which is what led to my definition of "oversight."

a reply to: PraetorianAZ

audit the pentagon along with the fed!