Fwd: [ cacklinggrackle] Molly Ivins: Breaking the 1st commandment of governance

[Guest guest]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Patrick Crumhorn <patrik

Sep 28, 2005 11:22 PM

[cacklinggrackle] Molly Ivins: Breaking the 1st commandment

of governance

grackle <cacklinggrackle >

 

 

 

" With billions being allocated to clean up after Hurricanes Katrina

and Rita, you can already smell

the corruption -- fat contracts awarded without competitive bidding.

The New York Times reports,

'More than 80 percent of the $1.5 billion in contracts signed by the

Federal Emergency Management

Agency alone were awarded without bidding or with limited competition,

government records show,

provoking concerns among auditors and government officials about the

potential for favoritism or abuse.'

 

" 'Provoking concerns,' eh? Good old Times, eternally blah -- why

doesn't it ever run a screaming

headline that says, 'You're Getting Ripped Off!' or 'They are Stealing

Your Money to Pay Off Their

Political Pals!' The trouble with journalism in this country is that

it's too damn polite.

 

" Look, this is rank, nasty business -- corruption, cronyism and

competence (the lack thereof) are

the issues here. And as we have so recently and so painfully been

reminded, when government is run

by corrupt, incompetent cronies, real people pay a real price. There

is nothing abstract about

swollen bodies floating in flooded streets or dozens of old people

dead in nursing homes. "

 

Full column at:

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/26078/