Just Recently the GAO released a report documenting abuses by government employees of government issued credit cards. Abuse the like that would land a private citizen in jail, sooner rather than later.... Following is how some of our "servants" have been living high off of our, yours and mine, money:
An Agriculture Department employee fraudulently wrote 180 convenience checks for more than $642,000 to a live-in boyfriend over a six-year period. The money was used for gambling, car and mortgage payments, dinners and retail purchases that went unnoticed until USDA's inspector general received a tip from a whistle-blower. The employee, who pleaded guilty to embezzlement and tax fraud charges, was sentenced last year to 21 months in prison and ordered to repay the money.
_U.S. Postal Service workers separately billed more than $14,000 to government credit cards for Internet dating services and a dinner at a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse in Orlando, Fla., for 81 people at a cost of $160 each for steaks and crab. The dinner bill also included more than 200 appetizers and more than $3,000 worth of wine and brand-name liquor such as Courvoisier, Belvedere and Johnny Walker Gold.
In the Internet dating case, a postmaster charged $1,100 over 15 months for two online services, including the Ashley Madison Agency. The expenses went unnoticed for more than a year even though he was under internal investigation for viewing pornography on a government computer. The postmaster was eventually told to repay the Internet charges but faced no disciplinary action.
_At the Pentagon, four employees purchased $77,700 in clothing and accessories at high-end clothing and sporting goods stores. The spending included more than $45,000 at Brooks Brothers and similar stores for tailor-made suits — $7,000 of which were purchased a week before Christmas. The credit-card holders said the items were for service members working at U.S. embassies with civilian attire. Pentagon rules allow purchases of civilian clothing when performing official duty, but generally only up to $860 per person.
_Justice Department and FBI employees charged $11,000 at a Ritz Carlton hotel for coffee and "light" refreshments for 50 to 70 attendees for four days, averaging about $50 per person. Seventy percent of the total conference cost of $15,000 was for the food and beverages, while audiovisual and other support services totaled only about $4,000, or 30 percent of the charges. It was not clear what action, if any, that Justice took in light of the conference expenses, which GAO deemed excessive.
_At the State Department, one credit-card holder bought $360 worth of women's lingerie at Seduccion Boutique for use during jungle training by trainees of a drug enforcement program in Ecuador. One State Department official later agreed that the charge was questionable and stated that he would not have approved the purchase had he known about it.
And:
Out of a sample of purchases totaling $2.7 million, the government could not account for hundreds of laptop computers, iPods and digital cameras worth more than $1.8 million. In one case, the U.S. Army could not say what happened to computer items making up 16 server configurations, each of which cost nearly $100,000."Too many government employees have viewed purchase cards as their personal line of credit," said Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations, which requested the GAO report. "When money that was intended to pay for critical infrastructure, education and homeland security is instead being spent on iPods, lingerie and socializing, we must immediately remedy the problem."
Read the rest of the story here.
We do not have to engage in conspiracy theories when the abuses of the American pubic by those elected and hired to serve the public are so blatant and for the most part will go unpunished. Or at least not to the extent you or I would suffer were we to engage in corporate theft.
What we are seeing is clear and convincing proof that the country is moving ever faster towards a country of those who have privilege and those who do not. Those who have power and those who do not. Those who take from those who can't afford it and use what they take to enrich their own lives. Robber barons, carpet baggers, traitors, use whatever term you wish the end result is predictable and has historical precedence. Call it an Aristocracy, Plutocracy, Oligarchy, or what have you. We are quickly becoming a caste society that bears little resemblance to a "Democracy".
Power and money more often than not is now distributed among those who gain access to bureaucracies and then perpetuate them for their own profit. More people at the top finding more ways to take from the those at the bottom. As the middle class disappears and the gulf widens between those who govern and must be paid to govern and those who must work harder and pay more to increasing numbers of govenors a dynamic develops leading not only to a more totalitarian form of government but a new AMERICAN SLAVERY.
There are laws, rules, regulations, policies and procedures to prevent this sort of rape and plunder of the public trust. However they for the most part go unenforced and for good reason. It is quite difficult to slap one hand stealing from the cookie jar when it is very likely you may slap your own hand also in the cookie jar.
The promises to the American public to cut back on entitlements, procurements and appropriations are consistently broken because after all what can we do throw out the whole government.
My friends the current situation is the exact same situation the founders of this country faced when they told the King and his tax collectors where to put it. We outlined, in a few posts down, grievances in the declaration of independence that are true again today. Though it is not England perpetrating the injustices that gave birth to America. It is now the American government that is perpetrating these exact same injustices. History does repeat itself.
This is not a conspiracy theory. This is the reality of the day and it will not be the money changers that will suffer. They will have theirs. And we my friends, if it is not to late, if we fail to act now, will face a coming economic crises of apocalyptic proportions the like that will enslave us all to the basics of survival.
Things to watch for:
Hedge Funds moving into survival mode to survive or avoid collapse.
Oil and/or gold denominated in Euros instead of dollars
China boycotting US treasury auctions and liquidating their dollars
The failure of the U.S. government to reign in it's own rape and pillaging of the treasury
And last but most importantly, the failure of the American people to rise up and hold those who would enslave them and strip them of their rights accountable.
Will your legacy be to leave your children slaves, or freemen and women?Add to Technorati Favorites
Ride Free.
