Amped Status's List: Government & Politics

"Hundreds of officials who worked for former Republican President George W. Bush are set to endorse Democratic White House hopeful Joe Biden, people involved in the effort said, the latest Republican-led group coming out to oppose the re-election of Donald Trump."

"When we talk about the war on drugs, which is increasingly turning into a real war, we often overlook the fact that the “criminals” involved in the drug trade aren’t actually violating anyone’s rights.  When a drug dealer is hauled before a judge, there is no victim standing behind the prosecutor claiming damages.  Everyone participating in the drug trade does so voluntarily. However, there are a lot more crimes for which this is also true.  Millions upon millions of Americans have been thrown into cages without a victim ever claiming damages.  It is important to look at the burden this mass level of incarceration places upon our society.

In light of that, let us review some statistics which demonstrate just how destructive the mass incarceration of victimless criminals has become to our society. The 2009 federal prison population consisted of:

Drugs 50.7%
Public-order 35.0%,
Violent 7.9%
Property 5.8%
Other .7%
Drug offenses are self-explanatory as being victimless, but so too are public-order offenses, which also fall under the victimless crimes category.  Public order offenses include such things as immigration, weapons charges, public drunkenness, selling lemonade without a license, dancing in public, feeding the homeless without a permit etc.."

"A new investigation by In These Times explodes myths about who is most likely to die at the hands of police by revealing that, compared to their percentage of the U.S. population, Native Americans were more likely to be killed by police than any other group, including African Americans. It also found that cases of African-American police deaths tend to dominate headlines, while killings of Native people go almost entirely unreported by mainstream U.S. media. We speak with reporter Stephanie Woodard, who wrote the article, “The Police Killings No One Is Talking About,” and with James Rideout, the uncle of Jacqueline Salyers, a 32-year-old pregnant mother and member of the Puyallup Tribe who was killed by police earlier this year in Tacoma, Washington. Watch Part 2: Native Americans Most Likely to be Killed by Police Than Other Groups, Investigation Reveals"

"Since May, the Trump administration has paid a fledgling Texas company $7.3 million for test tubes needed in tracking the spread of the coronavirus nationwide. But, instead of the standard vials, Fillakit LLC has supplied plastic tubes made for bottling soda, which state health officials say are unusable.

The state officials say that these “preforms,” which are designed to be expanded with heat and pressure into 2-liter soda bottles, don’t fit the racks used in laboratory analysis of test samples. Even if the bottles were the right size, experts say, the company’s process likely contaminated the tubes and could yield false test results. Fillakit employees, some not wearing masks, gathered the miniature soda bottles with snow shovels and dumped them into plastic bins before squirting saline into them, all in the open air, according to former employees and ProPublica’s observation of the company’s operations.

“It wasn’t even clean, let alone sterile,” said Teresa Green, a retired science teacher who worked at Fillakit’s makeshift warehouse outside of Houston for two weeks before leaving out of frustration."

"The Bayh–Dole Act or Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act (Pub. L. 96-517, December 12, 1980) is United States legislation dealing with inventions arising from federal government-funded research. Sponsored by two senators, Birch Bayh of Indiana and Bob Dole of Kansas, the Act was adopted in 1980, is codified at 94 Stat. 3015, and in 35 U.S.C. § 200–212,[1] and is implemented by 37 C.F.R. 401 for federal funding agreements with contractors[2] and 37 C.F.R 404 for licensing of inventions owned by the federal government.[3]

A key change made by Bayh–Dole was in the procedures by which federal contractors that acquired ownership of inventions made with federal funding could retain that ownership. Before the Bayh–Dole Act, the Federal Procurement Regulation required the use of a patent rights clause that in some cases required federal contractors or their inventors to assign inventions made under contract to the federal government unless the funding agency determined that the public interest was better served by allowing the contractor or inventor to retain principal or exclusive rights.[4] The National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the Department of Commerce had implemented programs that permitted non-profit organizations to retain rights to inventions upon notice without requesting an agency determination.[5] By contrast, Bayh–Dole uniformly permits non-profit organizations and small business firm contractors to retain ownership of inventions made under contract and which they have acquired, provided that each invention is timely disclosed and the contractor elects to retain ownership in that invention. [6]

A second key change with Bayh-Dole was to authorize federal agencies to grant exclusive licenses to inventions owned by the federal government.[7]"

"The U.S. Marshals Service suffered a cyberattack that exposed the personal information of approximately 387,000 current and former prisoners at the end of last year, according to an agency official.

“The attackers were able to exploit a vulnerability in the system to extract sensitive personally identifiable information on approximately 387,000 individuals,” a Marshals Service spokesperson told Nextgov. 

The spokesperson was referring to a system called DSNet, which is designed to house and transport prisoners within the agency, the federal courts and the Bureau of Prisons. Information extracted included names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers.  

Reports of the breach first surfaced on Friday, and cited notification letters the Marshals Service sent to the affected individuals. ZDNet published a copy of the letter, dated May 1, and linked to comments from concerned parties on Twitter.

“On December 30, 2019, the United States Marshals Service (USMS) Information Technology Division (ITD) received notification from the Department of Justice, Security Operations Center (JSOC) of a security breach affecting a public-facing USMS server that houses information pertaining to current and former USMS prisoners,” the letter reads. “You have been identified as an individual whose personally identifiable information (PII) may have been compromised as a result of this breach.”  "

"An anti-Trump Democratic-aligned political action committee advised by retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal is planning to deploy an information warfare tool that reportedly received initial funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon’s secretive research arm -- transforming technology originally envisioned as a way to fight ISIS propaganda into a campaign platform to benefit Joe Biden.

The Washington Post first reported that the initiative, called Defeat Disinfo, will utilize "artificial intelligence and network analysis to map discussion of the president’s claims on social media," and then attempt to "intervene" by "identifying the most popular counter-narratives and boosting them through a network of more than 3.4 million influencers across the country — in some cases paying users with large followings to take sides against the president."

Social media guru Curtis Hougland is heading up Defeat Disinfo, and he said he received the funding from DARPA when his work was "part of an effort to combat extremism overseas."

After this article was published, the Post updated its reporting to clarify that Hougland was "using open-source technology initially incubated with funding from DARPA." The Post originally reported: "The initiative is run by Curtis Hougland, who received initial funding for the technology from DARPA, the Pentagon’s research arm, as part of an effort to combat extremism overseas."

Hougland explained in an interview with the Post that he was unhappy that top social media accounts often supported Trump, and had effectively defended the president in recent days from claims that he had suggested Americans inject themselves with disinfectant."

"The mega relief package is being hailed as a desperately needed measure to steady the teetering U.S. economy and to help many of the millions who have lost their jobs.   But the sheer size of the aid program and the speed with which it is being doled out threatens to create a perfect storm for fraud and abuse on a magnitude not seen before, according to analysts. 

Sprawling legislation   

The sprawling legislation that was signed into law by U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday includes everything from massive loan programs for large and small businesses, direct payments to most families, aid to state and local governments, substantial increases in unemployment benefits and a bailout of airlines, hospitals and other major sectors of the economy.  

Financial fraud experts, government watchdogs and investigators involved in past government probes dating back to the 2008 financial crisis warn that the cost of potential fraud and abuse this time around could easily run into the tens of billions of dollars.  

Barry Sziklay, a veteran forensic accounting expert and a partner at Friedman LLP in New York, estimates that between 1% and 3% of the $2.2 trillion package could be lost through fraudulent activities.  

Potentially $20 billion to $60 billion in fraud     

“It would be between $20 billion and $60 billion,” Sziklay said. “That wouldn’t shock me.  There will be billions of dollars lost by the time we’re done.”   

Other experts agreed the extent of potential fraud will be significant. Howard Arp, director of investigations with the General Accountability Office, said there are scores of ways in which people could attempt to swindle or cheat the government economic stimulus program.    

Plenty of opportunity for fraud  

“Anytime you have a significant [spending] increase like this, there's always the opportunity for more people to take advantage of a program,” Arp said.  

However, Arp and other experts note that with the U.S. in such desperate straits in battling the spread of a coronavirus that has already killed more than 3,400 people in this country, the billions lost to fraud may be a small price to pay as the government rushes to get desperately needed  economic assistance to families and businesses.  

“In a scenario like this, you sort of don't want perfect to be the enemy of good,” Arp said.  

Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a government spending watchdog, said: "When Rome is burning you don’t worry about a couple of break-ins."  

The GAO, an investigative arm of Congress, is expected to play an important role in the oversight of the coronavirus recovery program.    "

"Right on page 5 of the 2019 Social Security annual report, the trustees explicitly state that “Trust Fund asset reserves become depleted and unable to pay scheduled benefits in full on a timely basis in 2035.”

And on page 2 of the report, they state that “Social Security’s cost has exceeded its non-interest income since 2010,” and that the cost of Social Security for 2019 exceeds non-interest income by $81 billion.

The Medicare annual report is even more bleak in its outlook:

“The Board projects that expenditures will increase in future years at a faster pace than either aggregate workers’ earnings or the economy overall . . .”

“[A]ny of these scenarios would substantially increase the strain on the nation’s workers, the economy, Medicare beneficiaries, and the Federal budget.”

“[T]ax income and other dedicated revenues will fall short of [program] expenditures in all future years”

“The financial projections in this report indicate a need for substantial changes to address Medicare’s financial challenges.”

They even state that the government needs to give taxpayers ample time to “adjust their expectations and behavior” to the major changes that will end up being made to the program as a result of these fiscal realities.

And they also project that Medicare’s largest trust fund will be fully depleted in 2026, just six years from now.

Again, don’t take my word for it. These are official government reports signed by (among others) the Treasury Secretary of the United States.

This is not some wild conspiracy theory. This isn’t even a political problem. It’s an arithmetic problem… and one that will never add up.

Both programs estimate their funding gap to be nearly $20 TRILLION.

This is a level that is obviously beyond the government’s capacity to bail out. The federal government loses a trillion dollars each year and is already in debt by $23.25 trillion.

(And to be clear, that is a record high amount. In other words, the federal debt level right now, today, is the highest that it has ever been in US history.)"

"At least 200 Salvadoran migrants and asylum seekers have been killed, raped or tortured after being deported back to El Salvador by the United States government which is turning a blind eye to widely known dangers, a new investigation reveals.

Human Rights Watch has documented 138 deported Salvadorans murdered by gang members, police, soldiers, death squads and ex-partners between 2013 and 2019. The majority were killed within two years of deportation by the same perpetrators they had tried to escape by seeking safety in the US.

The report, Deported to Danger: United States deportation policies expose Salvadorans to death and abuse, also identifies more than 70 others who were subjected to beatings, sexual assault and extortion – usually at the hand of gangs – or who went missing after being returned.

"Amid all the finger-pointing and anger that followed the nightmarish Iowa Democratic presidential caucuses Monday night, many journalists and progressive observers homed in on the smartphone app the state Democratic Party used—with disastrous consequences—to record and report the results of the highly anticipated contest.

"The DNC and the Iowa Democratic Party have engineered a nightmare. People are going to lose their minds over the result, whatever it is. Epic, raw incompetence."
—Zach Carter, HuffPost
The app, according to several news reports, was developed by the secretive for-profit tech firm Shadow Inc., which has ties to and receives funding from ACRONYM, a Democratic digital non-profit organization. Shadow's CEO is Gerard Niemira, who worked on Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign.

"State campaign finance records indicate the Iowa Democratic Party paid Shadow... more than $60,000 for 'website development' over two installments in November and December of last year," HuffPost reported late Monday. "A Democratic source with knowledge of the process said those payments were for the app that caucus site leaders were supposed to use to upload the results at their locales."

Shadow has also been paid for services by the Nevada Democratic Party and the presidential campaigns of former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, according to Federal Election Commission filings."

"A major breathalyzer manufacturer is under criminal investigation for possible forgery. Police forces nationwide have been using the same company’s machines to turn alleged drink-drivers into convicted ones—seizing licenses, imposing fines, and, in some cases, imprisoning people. Defendants have been asking judges to look under the hood of the machine that tests them, only for the breathalyzer maker to refuse to play ball.

These aren’t dystopian hypotheticals, but the reality surrounding a major supplier of breath-alcohol testing machines to cops across America."

"A new report from the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy, which one of us—Foa— co-authored, provides a broader look at this issue, and the conclusions are not hopeful, to say the least. The report analyzed data collected across 154 countries, 3,500 surveys covering more than 4 million respondents, and half a century of social-science research."...

Satisfaction with democracy, according to the report, has eroded in most parts of the world, with an especially notable drop over the past decade. Public confidence in democracy is at the lowest point on record in the United States, the major democracies of Western Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America. In some countries, including the United States, this metric is now reaching an important threshold: The number of people who are dissatisfied with democracy is greater than the number of people who are satisfied with it.

Three findings are particularly noteworthy. First, over the past quarter century, satisfaction with democracy has fallen across the democratic world as a whole. In the mid-1990s, citizens in a majority of countries for which there are data felt satisfied with the performance of their democracies. Except for a brief dip in the ’90s following the Asian and Latin American financial crises, this remained true until 2015, when a majority of citizens turned negative in their evaluation of democratic performance. Since then, dissatisfaction has continued to grow.

Overall, the report estimates that the number of individuals who are “dissatisfied” with the condition of democracy in their country has risen by 10 percentage points, from 48 percent to 58 percent. (This observation is based on a constant-country, population-weighted sample of 77 democracies for which relatively complete data exist from the mid-’90s to today. This represents 2.4 billion individuals across the span of Europe, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, North America, East Asia, and Australasia.)

The second noteworthy finding is that the fall in democratic satisfaction has been especially pronounced in those countries that were supposed to be especially stable: high-income, developed democracies. During the ’90s, about two out of every three citizens of democracies in Europe, North America, Northeast Asia, and Australasia felt satisfied with the way their country was run. Today, a majority is, for the first time, dissatisfied....

During the 2008 financial crisis, this began to change. And since then, Americans have become more pessimistic about their system every single year. For the first time on record, polls show that a majority of Americans (55 percent) are dissatisfied with their system of government.

This marks a profound shift in America’s view of itself—and its place in the world.

"Q. Are whistleblowers in danger of losing protections if it turns out their report of wrongdoing turns out to be false?

Protection is typically provided for good faith reporting based on reasonable belief of wrongdoing made to the state inspector general, ombudsperson, ethics commission or other administrative or adjudicatory bodies. Even if allegations are not proven, the whistleblower will still be protected as long as the disclosure was made in good faith. However, when allegations are knowingly or recklessly false, those providing the information could be removed from protection and subject to financial penalties.

Q. Is it risky to be a whistleblower, even if the disclosures are made in good faith?

It is. Because protection of whistleblowers is often difficult to enforce. Recent civil service reforms have meant loss of some job rights for public employees. If an employee is in the classified civil service, they have formal due process rights affording some protection. However, increasing numbers of positions are being converted to “at-will,” subject to termination at any time for any reason not contrary to law.

[Statutes notwithstanding], concern about possible retaliation is a real deterrent to disclosure, especially if the allegation concerns wrongdoing by an agency superior. We know of cases where people lost their jobs, although it is very difficult to prove that this was a result of retaliation, as other reasons that are tied to job performance may be offered by the employer to explain the dismissal.

Based on our interviews, some appeals claiming retaliation were decided in favor of the employee, but [even] more were denied in favor of the employer.

Q. What surprised you most about your research findings?

We were very surprised at the variation in the administrative units responsible for overseeing whistleblower protection. In prior research on other subjects, we have found it easy to identify the target department, agency or person who can provide the desired information. However, in this study it was very difficult to pinpoint the unit charged with responsibility to protect whistleblowers.

It could be an inspector general or attorney general office, human resource department, department of labor, legislative management audit department, ethics commission, legislative counsel, ombudsman office, auditor’s office, equal employment opportunity coordinator, governor’s office, department of workforce development, independent dispute resolution agency or human rights office.

In some states there are multiple offices; in other states, there are none. Finding the office charged with enforcement responsibility was a bigger challenge than we anticipated.

Q. What aspect of state whistleblower laws stand out as most in need of reform?

In some states, multiple agencies must be contacted when reporting wrongdoing and often the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.

Diverse departments and bureaus may provide oversight and that can lead to uncertainty and inconsistency in implementing whistleblower protections.

Central offices frequently refer or delegate complaints to decentralized units or other agencies for resolution, making it hard to track the process. Lack of clarity occurs due to the overlapping responsibilities of state ethics commissions and those enforcing legal whistleblowing provisions. In addition, the processes for handling whistleblower complaints in the executive branch often differ from those originating from the legislative branch and that can be confusing.

Q. Do you have recommendations for state whistleblower laws?

As states review their whistleblowing laws, we encourage them to consider whether whistleblowing is clearly defined, the principal administrative unit enforcing the state is specified and the standard and process for determining whistleblower status is unambiguous.

The laws should consider providing guidelines for reporting wrongdoing, state the guarantees and limits of confidentiality, list the disclosures that are protected, set time limits between the wrongdoing claims and administrative responses, outline appeal channels and provide criteria for determining rewards and penalties."

"From unmarked strip-mall offices in small-town Alabama, the calls go out across the United States, meant to talk people into giving money for heart-tugging causes like helping breast cancer patients or the widows of fallen police officers.

Even as they charmed millions from credulous donors, a dozen former callers for two major fundraisers told Reuters that they knew their companies would be keeping the vast majority of it. And the groups they were raising money for weren’t charities at all, but political action committees, which normally are set up to gather funds for candidates or political causes....

These so-called “scam PACs” and their fundraisers exploit the gray zone between U.S. election finance and state charity fundraising laws, regulators told Reuters. They often are set up as super PACs, groups which in recent years have been empowered by the courts to raise and spend money in unlimited amounts, with little regulation.

But “scam PACs” are not like other political action committees. Rather, they and their fundraisers present the PACs as charities, suggesting they support veterans, firefighters or victims of deadly diseases, for instance.

In fact, “scam PAC” operators and fundraisers are often old hands of the charity world, with a history of run-ins with regulators, state and federal records show. Some fundraisers work in both worlds, raising money for charities and PACs.

When organizations operate as political action committees, however, they are not subject to the laws governing charity fundraising, according to federal and state regulators and telemarketing industry officials. (See accompanying article.) In return for tax-exempt status, charities generally must register with states, disclose their key employees and account for how the money is spent – in some cases by providing audited financial statements.

Not so for “scam PACs.”

“It is a way for them to get around the charity laws – that’s exactly what they’re doing,” said Stuart Discount, chief executive of the Professional Association for Customer Engagement, a trade association for direct marketers.

‘‘Scam PAC” telemarketers who use aggressive tactics in the charity realm also face less risk of scrutiny or sanction when they turn to PAC fundraising, regulators and former callers said. Callers told Reuters they easily made the switch, working in the same buildings, for the same bosses, using similar scripts.

Though “scam PACS” have no standard definition and can’t be definitively counted, a review of Federal Election Commission records suggests they account for a sliver of the some 6,800 PACs in the country. Even so, Reuters identified a loose network of fundraising companies and PACs that quickly grew into a money-making force, with some ranking near the top fundraisers in the period stretching from January 2017 through mid-2019.

Starting with a group of eight fundraising operations that earned at least a half-million dollars each during this period, Reuters traced interconnections among them and 31 PACs. Generally, those in the informal network portrayed themselves as charitable, gave little to the causes they promoted and relied principally on small donors. Most were super PACs, but several were traditional political action committees, which have contribution limits.

"Detroit overtaxed homeowners by at least $600 million after it failed to accurately bring down property values in the years following the Great Recession, according to an investigation by The Detroit News.

City Hall completed a state-ordered reappraisal of every residential property in 2017 to correct the problem, but the pain of its past mistakes remains with thousands who today face foreclosure over back taxes. 

Of the more than 63,000 Detroit homes with delinquent debt as of last fall, more than 90% were overtaxed—by an average of at least $3,700—between 2010 and 2016, according to calculations by The News. The debt owed on about 40,000 of those homes is less than the properties were overtaxed over those seven years. 

The inflated bills have been an added burden to homeowners in the poorest big city in the nation, and call into question a tax system that has foreclosed on a third of city properties since 2008....


Among the The News' findings:
♦ Of 173,000 Detroit homes reviewed, more than 92% were over-assessed between 2010 and 2016, and overtaxed by an average total of $3,800. Nearly 96,000 of those properties were taxed twice as much as they should have been in at least one of those years.

♦ Of the over-assessed homes, city records show about 79,000 properties have had the same owner since 2010, meaning those homeowners bore the full brunt of the overtaxation. More are likely to have felt the impact because buyers often purchase homes with prior years of unpaid taxes they must pay.

♦ At least 59,000 homes that were overtaxed still have back taxes today—a total of $153 million, which includes interest and fees. Those same homes were overtaxed by at least $221 million over the seven years, according to the analysis.

"How is 97 percent of Congress able to get re-elected each year even though only 17 percent of the American people believe our representatives are doing a good job?

It’s called an incumbent protection system. Taxpayers have a right to know how it works.

Recently, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com, mashed up the federal checkbook with the congressional campaign donor database (source: OpenSecrets.org). We found powerful members of Congress soliciting campaign donations from federal contractors based in their districts.

We followed the money and found a culture of conflict-of-interest. The confluence of federal money, campaign cash, private employment, investments, prestigious committee appointments, political power, nepotism, and other conflicts are a fact pattern.

Furthermore, members of Congress own investment stock in, are employed by, and receive retirement pensions from federal contractors to whom they direct billions of taxpayer dollars.

Moreover, members sponsor legislation that affects these contractors. The contractor’s lobbyists then advocate for the legislation that helps the member and the contractor. Oftentimes, the contractor’s lobbyist also donates campaign cash to the member."

"The agency charged with enforcing campaign finance law begins the presidential election year paralyzed by the lack of a board quorum and unable to dispense with hundreds of complaints.

As Republican Caroline Hunter assumes the rotating chairmanship of the Federal Election Commission, she inherits a growing backlog of more than 300 pending campaign finance complaints, nearly 70 of which may never be resolved because they are close to the expiration of a five-year statute of limitations.

FEC analysts continue to review campaign finance reports filed by candidates, and staff lawyers can interview witnesses and collect documents in more than two dozen investigations approved by the commissioners before the loss of a quorum at the end of August. However, none of these probes can conclude and no new investigations can begin until a quorum is restored.

“The FEC’s ability to monitor the billions of dollars sloshing around this election cycle is currently severely constrained, and its ability to punish those who break the law is severely curtailed until it regains a quorum,” said Michael Beckel, research director at Issue One, a campaign finance watchdog nonprofit group."

That meant the loss of a quorum of at least four commissioners needed to approve settlements, fines and other enforcement action. The number of these cases awaiting a vote by the commissioners “has nowhere to go but up,” as prolonged vacancies at the FEC continue into the presidential election year, she added.

Seats on the six-member FEC are equally divided among commissioners recommended by Democrats and Republicans. Petersen’s resignation left only three current commissioners and three vacancies.