Aren’t you glad you voted for Bush and Co? What a bang-up job they’ve all done over the last eight years. Nothing like having had a small government, fiscal conservative in the White House who protected every dime of your tax money. Good times, good times…
A Defense Department project, supposedly designed to support U.S. troops, was used instead to channel millions of dollars to personal friends and allies of its chief. The “America Supports You,” or ASY, program was led in a “questionable and unregulated manner,” according to a Department of Defense Inspector General report, obtained by Danger Room. At least $9.2 million was “inappropriately transferred” by the project’s managers. Much of that money served only to further promote ASY, instead of assisting servicemembers.
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In time, however, the program grew. Pro-troop rallies were organized. Special wristband and dog tags were made. Special-edition comic books were printed up. Processions were held on the National Mall, on the 9/11 anniversary. Sesame Street characters were enlisted to make DVDs that encouraged families with young children to talk about overseas deployments. America Supports You became a kind of umbrella group for all sorts of charity-related work for service members and military families.Meanwhile, ASY began to spend millions — not to help the troops, the Inspector General says, but to help itself.
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Worse still, in the eyes of many, was that Barber used the Stars & Stripes newspaper as a kind of money-laundering service, to pay Davis and Semel. The paper is partially financed by the Pentagon, and was part of Barber’s American Forces Information Service. But Stripes has a decades-long tradition of fierce independence. Editors were galled to discover that Barber’s office was pouring money into the paper’s coffers — and then paying Davis and Semel out of accounts with less congressional oversight and fewer spending restrictions than typical Defense Department funds.
Don’t people usually go to jail for this kind of thing? I mean those who aren’t military brass, military contractors, Congress, White House, etc.
Not that males are immune from the siren call of the Web, but the numbers aren’t so dramatic. Some 30% of all men would swap sex for the Internet for two weeks, if they had to, with 39% of men aged 18-34 willing to make that sacrifice, according to the survey. Only 23% of men aged 35-44 said they would do so.
The meaning of this should baffle your friends.
American consumers paid inflated prices for tomato-based products such as sauces, soups and salsas, and in some cases they ate food that didn’t match the quality advertised on labels, because of corruption at a major Central Valley tomato processor, federal authorities said Wednesday.
