The "APPEARANCE" of favoritism...? Surely, you MUST be joking...

damn... i wish somebody would "favor" ME with an 18-month $28-52M contract that i didn't have to bid for...

When the top federal prosecutor in New Jersey needed to find an outside lawyer to monitor a large corporation willing to settle criminal charges out of court last fall, he turned to former Attorney General John Ashcroft, his onetime boss. With no public notice and no bidding, the company awarded Mr. Ashcroft an 18-month contract worth $28 million to $52 million.

That contract, which Justice Department officials in Washington learned about only several weeks ago, has prompted an internal inquiry into the department’s procedures for selecting outside monitors to police settlements with large companies.

[...]

Officials said that while there had been no accusations of wrongdoing on the part of Mr. Christie or Mr. Ashcroft, aides to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey were concerned about the appearance of favoritism.

ain't no "APPEARANCE" about it... it's the real deal...

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"It still looks like a government -- . But pull back the curtains and there is nobody home."

naomi klein in today's la times...

[I]f any given job can't be outsourced, it can't be done.

This philosophy, so central to the Bush years, explains statistics like this one: In 2003, the U.S. government handed out 3,512 contracts to companies to perform domestic security functions, from bomb detection to data mining. In the 22-month period ending in August 2006, the Homeland Security Department had issued more than 115,000 security-related contracts.

If government is now an ATM, perhaps the war on terror is best understood not as a war but as a sprawling new economy, one based on continued disaster and instability. In this economy, the Bush team doesn't run the venture exactly; rather, it plays the role of deep-pocketed venture capitalist, always on the lookout for new security start-ups (overwhelmingly headed by former employees of the Pentagon and Homeland Security).

[...]

It still looks like a government -- with impressive buildings, presidential news briefings, policy battles. But pull back the curtain and there is nobody home.

it's interesting to note, however, that the areas of government that are working day and night to increase and solidify executive power, remove our civil liberties, and trash the constitution, there always seems to be plenty of people at home...

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When crony capitalism and corruption is the order of the day at the top, what do we expect?

when the second highest public official in the land is overseeing a system that awards massive, no-bid contracts to the company in which he still holds large financial interests, what's to keep a mere city official from feathering his own nest...?

A high-level manager for the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles directed nearly $800,000 in contracts to his brothers and three politically connected firms without competitive bidding or after rigged contests, a Times review has found.

The manager, Victor Taracena, oversaw more than 150 contracts worth about half a million dollars that went directly to companies his brothers created, contract files show.

Seven other contracts worth $289,000 were awarded to non-family firms, two of which had little or no expertise in the work they were hired to do.

These firms — all with ties to current or former Los Angeles City Council members from the Eastside — won their contracts in bidding processes fraught with irregularities. In one case, a losing bid was submitted by a nonexistent company. Other such bids came from actual companies which, when contacted by The Times, said they were surprised to learn that bids had been submitted in their names.

this is what we get when the ethics of public service has collapsed and there are no role models of public stewardship to point to... it's the very same dynamic that has given tacit permission for the wave of polarization, intolerance, name-calling, bigotry and hate that's eating at the very heart of human decency in the public dialog...

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