Unbelievable

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U.S. taxpayers financed human trafficking, report says

WASHINGTON - For the first time since Congress mandated its annual publication, a State Department report cataloging human trafficking across the globe includes allegations that American taxpayers financed such abuses.

This year's Trafficking in Persons Report, released Monday, also ranks Iran among the 12 nations in the world with the worst records for limiting human trafficking within and across its borders, just as the Bush administration is attempting to bring pressure on Tehran because of its developing nuclear program.

Other familiar Bush administration targets, such as Syria, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, also made this year's list of the worst dozen, while White House allies and other strategically important nations - including India, Mexico, Russia and China - escaped the roll call despite evidence in the report of growing problems.

People can be trafficked across or within borders for prostitution or forced labor, a practice officials describe as a modern form of slavery.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...cs/14747951.htm

The Case of the Missing $21 Billion

Who's Following the Iraq Money?

DAVE LINDORFF

The new inspector general, an affable attorney named Stuart Bowen, went to work and came up with a report in early 2006 that sounded scathing enough. Bowen found cases of double billing by contractors, of payments for work that was never done, and other scandals. But he never came up with more than $1 billion or so worth of problems.

Now we know why.

It turns out that Bowen was never really looking very hard.

When the Boston Globe, this past April, broke the story that President Bush has been quietly setting aside over 750 acts passed by Congress, claiming he has the authority as "unitary executive" and as commander in chief to ignore such laws, it turned out that one of the laws the president chose to ignore was the one establishing the special inspector general post for Iraq. What the president did was write a so-called "signing statement" on the side (unpublicized of course), saying that the new inspector general would have no authority to investigate any contracts or corruption issues involving the Pentagon.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff06072006.html

[DKW 86 7,429]

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/A997_0_2_0_C/

About One third of the Department of Education Budget goes missing yearly...This for the calendar year 2000.

Six Billion Missing at Education Department

By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid  |  May 25, 2001 The scandal at the education department has reached a new and unprecedented level. 

  In Washington, during congressional debate over President Bush's "Leave no child behind" education initiative, Republicans have been arguing for an increase of 11 percent in spending by the Department of Education, DOE, while Democrats have been arguing for a 35-50 percent increase. The department currently operates on a budget of $44.5 billion a year. But the sad truth, which has escaped the attention of most of the major media, is that there is no real guarantee that any of this money will actually get to students. This is because the DOE has been so characterized by financial scandal that it is incapable of accounting for the money that it is currently spending. The amount of missing, mismanaged or stolen money reaches $6 billion.

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Dammit.