CREW Intentions: Improve Department of Homeland Security

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released a new report entitled Homeland Security for Sale? DHS: Five Years of Mismanagement, an accompanying website, www.homelandsecurityforsale.org, and a video created and produced by Brave New Foundation.

The report and video document the past five years of the agency's most serious problems and troubling practices.

Every day, the American people read new stories about DHS and its gross overruns on projects, the worst employee morale in the federal government, the inoperability of information technology, our exposure to cyber-terrorism or FEMA's fake press conference. CREW is releasing its report to hold those who run the agency accountable for its massive failures and to spark a public debate about how DHS can and must be improved in the next administration.

In its report, CREW details billions of dollars in waste and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars, for example:
$24 billion has been spent, and at least $178 million wasted, on the failed Coast Guard Deepwater program; over $600 million has been allocated for unworkable radiation border scanners; $1.3 billion has been lost on the US-VISIT program, which was never fully implemented and projected $2 billion loss on the SBInet "virtual fence" border program.

The video, full report and exhibits can be viewed at www.homelandsecurityforsale.org.***Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is a non-profit legal watchdog group dedicated to holding public officials accountable for their actions.

For more information, please visit www.citizensforethics.org or contact Naomi Seligman Steiner at 202.408.5565/nseligman@citizensforethics.org.

Friday Quick Hits

Five U.S. soldiers were killed when a "very large" roadside bomb exploded near their combat patrol in southern Baghdad, a U.S. general said Friday.

A combination of small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades followed the blast Thursday, said Army Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., who described the attack as "showing a level of sophistication that we have not often seen so far" during the period of the so-called "surge" in U.S. forces.

Fil said four soldiers were killed initially. Seven others were wounded, he said, and one of those later died.


The New York Times has a new poll out. Here's a clue, it wouldn't be in this blog if it wasn't saying something I would not agree with.

What Women See in Hillary (or not)
from the Nation via Zogby

"I love [Hillary Clinton] so completely that, honestly, she would have to burn down the White House before I would say anything bad about her!" exclaimed Nora Ephron in a 1993 Newsday interview. Three years later, she told the Wellesley class of 1996, "Understand: Every attack on Hillary Clinton for not knowing her place is an attack on you." Come late 2006, however, Ephron was the one on the attack as one of the self-described "Hillary resisters" -- those who believe that "she will do anything to win, who believe she doesn't really take a position unless it's completely safe," as she wrote on her Huffington Post blog, "who believe she has taken the concept of triangulation and pushed it to a geometric level never achieved by anyone including her own husband, who can't stand her position on the war, who don't trust her as far as you can spit."

Hey Guantanamo Detainees, The Court's in Your Favor
The Supreme Court said today that it would review the rights of Guantanamo Bay detainees to challenge their confinements in federal court, reversing a decision in April not to take up that issue.

A Syria-ous Charge
President George W. Bush on Friday banned Syrian and Lebanese officials whom Washington accuses of undermining the Lebanese government from entering the United States, the White House said.

Free Air Better Than Fair Air?
The House voted Thursday to bar the Federal Communications Commission from reinstating the broadcast “fairness doctrine” even though there are no legislative or regulatory proposals to bring back the rule. The bill which was adopted, 309-115, puts the House on record as favoring “freedom on the public airwaves.” This is great news for Rush, Sean, Ann, and less good news for equal press. With consolidation of the airwaves, this points to the need for community radio.

Veggie Booty Might Make You a Sicko
Food poisoning isn't progressive so be aware a recall is underway for snack food Veggie Booty which may have a type of salmonella in it.

Bush "Putin" on the Ritz in Kennebunkport This Weekend For Russian Leader
Caviar from the Caspian Sea will be flown in to the land of lobster as what might be the final meeting between Presidents Bush and Vladimir Putin gets underway in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Dems Challenge Invocation of Executive Privilege
In a letter to White House counsel Fred Fielding, the heads of the Senate and House Judiciary committees demanded an explanation in 10 days of why the White House claimed executive privilege on subpoenaed documents and vowed to invoke "the full force of law."

Homeland's Chertoff: He Don't Like, He Don't Like, He Don't Like--Propane
A long way to go for a pun, but Charles Grassley and Tom Harkin saw problems with new propane regulations proposed by the Department of Homeland Security. The proposal would list propane as a chemical of interest when kept in quantities greater than 7,500 pounds, forcing a costly risk assessment.

Fried Nuts

What do the actions of Homeland Security deportation agents and Mama's Place Bar and Grill in Elderon, Wisconsin have in common? At Mama's Place, for the 9th year in a row on Saturday, you could get a steaming hot "all-you-can-eat" buffet of fried goat, lamb and bull testicles for $5. Read on for the similarities.

From NPR

In Los Angeles, the unusual case of two immigrants whose deportations were botched by U.S. immigration officials has allowed a rare glimpse into internal proceedings within the Department of Homeland Security.

The men say that U.S. immigration officials drugged them in order to ease their removal from the country — but airline officials ultimately put a stop to the deportations.

Both immigrants are back in Los Angeles, appealing their deportations. And they've now obtained government medical records that seem to confirm their accounts.

One of the men, Raymond Soeoth, is a Christian minister from Indonesia who came to the United States in 1999 to flee religious persecution. But on Dec. 7, 2004, immigration agents told him he was going to be deported.

Soeoth says that an agent asked him if he needed medication to relax him for the trip. He replied that he did not. But a few hours later, says Soeoth, several agents came into his cell. One of them, he says, was a medic. He was holding a syringe.

"Two officers grabbed my legs, two officers grabbed my hands. Then they opened my pants. And then I said, 'Why are you guys doing this to me?' and I was crying and crying, and I said 'Why? I'm not animal.'"

According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement medical records, Soeth was injected with Haldol, a very powerful sedative.

In Soeoth's case, his government medical records say a physician prescribed Haldol because Soeoth threatened to kill himself if he was deported.

Soeoth denies that he said this; there is no documentation in his medical records of any other suicide threats, or any history of mental illness.

Immigration agents told Senegalese immigrant Amadou Diouf that he was going to be deported. A federal court had given Diouf a stay of deportation, but agents brought him to the airport anyway.

On the plane, Diouf asked to speak to the pilot. He says this angered his government-appointed medical escort, who tried to force Diouf into the plane's lavatory.

"He took the bag out, and he took the syringe," Diouf said. "At that point I knew that, you know, they're going to sedate me. Next thing you know, I refused to get inside the lavatory anyway, and I was pushed to the back and wrestled to the ground."

Diouf says agents injected him with a drug, and then they were kicked off the plane. He says his legs were so numb that on the way out, he fell down the plane's stairs onto the tarmac. Diouf's medical records confirm that he was given medication. It does not list the type of medication.

The American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is representing both Soeoth and Diouf says his organization is investigating whether to file a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security.

I don't know about you, but this makes me sick to my stomach, as I suspect fried testicles would.