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Training of Pakistani intelligence and military personnel in the use of electronic surveillance and analysis equipment potentially could take place on U.S. soil, according to an Army planning document that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor has located. The document asserted that the Army at this point only is conducting a market survey of firms capable of providing such training; however, the “sources sought” notice equally made clear that a follow-on Foreign Military Sales procurement of services would allow the training to take place either outside of the country—Pakistan, specifically—or domestically. The notice referred to Arizona, Florida, and Maryland as possible...

Five contractors this week secured another chunk of a $10 billion global law-enforcement project of the U.S. State Dept., which is deploying hired guns and consultants worldwide. Although the department yesterday (May 11) identified the companies to whom it awarded new contracts, it did not specify the destination or mission assigned to the respective vendors. Rather, it will pay the vendors on an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity, or IDIQ, basis. DynCorp International, Justice Services International, MPRI, PAE Government Services, and Civilian Police International will provide a variety of “civilian police” (CIVPOL), corrections, and advisement services to clients of the State...

Madison — Democrats have adjourned an extraordinary session of the Legislature and officially given up on an unusual bid to pass labor contracts for tens of thousands of state workers in a lame-duck session. Two top leaders for both Democrats and Republicans met briefly Thursday morning to adjourn the session on labor contracts. The session had technically been left alive Wednesday night after Democrats narrowly but dramatically failed to pass the agreements. Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Russ Decker (D-Wausau) and Sen. Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) crossed party lines to vote with Republicans to reject the contracts. The agreements then failed...

Madistan, WI — Democrats have adjourned an extraordinary session of the Legislature and officially given up on an unusual bid to pass labor contracts for tens of thousands of state workers in a lame-duck session. Two top leaders for both Democrats and Republicans met briefly Thursday morning to adjourn the session on labor contracts. The session had technically been left alive Wednesday night after Democrats narrowly but dramatically failed to pass the agreements. The outcome means unions will now have to seek new contracts from Governor-elect Scott Walker, who campaigned on cutting their benefits to help balance the state budget."We've...

Officials at the Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Stability contracted with a small consulting firm that had given nearly $25,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005 (and no money to Republicans) for “Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Analysts to support the Disclosure Services, Privacy and Treasury Records.” The firm is currently advertising a job opening for a FOIA analyst with experience in the “Use of FOIA/PA exemptions to withhold information from release to the public” (emphasis mine, and if that link goes down, The Examiner has kept a copy for its records).

I got a call from P2S, BP's Oil Spill Clean up company in Florida and Alabama that stated BP mandated ALL clean up activities and work is TERMINATED EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. All workers are terminated effective immediately as well. BP HAS TERMINATED THE CLEAN UP EFFORTS IN FLORIDA. YOU HEARD IT ON GLP FIRST.

Click here to find out more! In "Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity," I bet my readers $1,000 that they couldn't name one thing that government does better than the private sector. I am yet to pay. Free enterprise does everything better. Why? Because if private companies don't do things efficiently, they lose money and die. Unlike government, they cannot compel payment through the power to tax. Even when a private company operates a public facility under contract to government, it must perform. If it doesn't, it will be "fired" -- its contract won't be renewed. Government is never fired. Contracting...

Nearly every aspect of a teacher’s job falls under the rules of a union contract. The following is a synopsis of just one of those agreements in Michigan. It comes from Fruitport Community Schools near Muskegon, which employs 224 teachers and enrolls 3,200 students. Of its $32 million operating budget (excluding capital expenditures and debt services), 83 percent goes to pay employee compensation. Teacher salaries are determined by a single salary schedule that creates annual automatic raises based solely an employee’s years of experience and graduate degrees. In Fruitport, these automatic annual pay raises are usually 3 to 4 percent....

A gentleman who goes by the screen name "Hitman" placed the winning bid on a 2009 Dodge Challenger SRT8. Hitman won the eBay auction fair and square with a bid of $29,100 on a vehicle that is sticker priced at around $46,000. The dealership, Glenn E Thomas Dodge Chrysler Jeep in Signal Hill, California claims that their employee made a mistake when listing the vehicle and forgot to set a reserve price.

Since its founding in 1912, Summitville Tiles has been a proud family company with a legacy of service to the government. F.H. "Pete" Johnson, the company's founder and a World War I veteran, stood proudly by the company's motto, "American Made, American Owned" - and true to his word, Summitville tiles cover the roof of the White House and the floors of Washington, D.C., Metro stations. Today, Mr. Johnson's grandson, David Johnson, wonders whether that legacy has any value. Last year, his company had high expectations of landing a subcontract to provide brick for a school to be built at...

From a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, MI on October 2, 2008: "I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all. The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton and the like will be over when I'm in the White House." *** FOX News: The Obama administration this month awarded a $25 million federal contract for work in Afghanistan to a company owned by a prominent Democratic campaign contributor without entertaining competitive bids.

President Obama said Monday that federal agencies will cut roughly $19 billion from government contracts this fiscal year, putting them on track to meet his goal of trimming $40 billion in fiscal 2011. "Business as usual in Washington just wont do," he said during a White House press conference in which he also recognized a federal employee for her winning cost-cutting idea. "After years of irresponsibility, we are once again taking responsibility for every dollar we spend, the same way families do." The administration wants to reach its $40 billion goal by improving the management and oversight of contracts and...

The Justice Department has ruled that the federal government can honor some existing contracts to fund ACORN, despite a law barring the flow of all federal money to the beleaguered community group. David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, concluded in a five-page ruling that the funding ban signed by President Barack Obama in October as part of the legislative branch appropriations bill does not direct the Department of Housing and Urban Development to breach pre-existing contracts to pay ACORN. Much of ACORN’s federal funds come in the form of housing subsidies. The ruling,...

The photographer who shot the picture violated his contract by reselling them to Newsweek. That photographer, Brian Adams, could not immediately be reached, and his agent, Kelly Price, declined to comment, saying, "I keep all of my clients' business private." But a spokeswoman for Runner's World confirms that Adams's contract contained a clause stipulating that his photos of Palin would be under embargo for a period of one year following publication -- meaning until August 2010. "Runner's World did not provide Newsweek with its cover image," the spokeswoman said. "It was provided to Newsweek by the photographer's stock agency, without...

PINELLAS PARK, Fla.- A Florida couple said the homeowners association of their retirement community is trying to evict their 6-year-old granddaughter. Jimmy and Judie Stottler of Pinellas Park said their granddaughter, Kimberly, came to live with them as an infant when authorities took her away from her drug-abusing mother, WSTP-TV, St. Petersburg, Fla., reported Thursday. The girl has stayed with her grandparents in the retirement community since, even though the community's rules don't allow children. The couple said the homeowners association is now pressuring them to comply with the ban on children, but they are unable to move because they...

Earlier this month, the Treasury Department quietly hired three law firms and a consulting firm for advice on restructurings and potential bankruptcies in the auto industry. Treasury did not issue a press release announcing the hirings, even through the contracts with the law firms were among the biggest yet for work on the government's $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. The deals drew scant coverage beyond trade publications. Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP and Haynes and Boone LLP got six-month contracts worth as much as $8.59 million each, or $25.8 million total. Reports that the...

Congresswoman Maloney wants to impose a 100% tax on the recipients of the AIG retention payments. Never mind that this is unconstitutional because it is a bill of attainder (a law aimed at a specific person or group of persons) and a taking without just compensation (others are considering a 98% tax to avoid this issue). What I find most concerning and ironic is that she is willing to say, out loud, that AIG should have merely not made the payments despite the fact that they were contractually obligated to do so. She compares it to GM's renegotiation of its...

All aspects of federal contracting programs favoring minority-owned businesses have been turned upside down by an injunction issued by a judge in San Antonio.

"Worst of all, the power which Congress delegated to the President enabled him to make criminals out of honest American citizens whose crime would consist only of trying to protect themselves from official debasement of their money. In more fundamental terms, Americans henceforth would be "under the gun" for exercising a fundamental, inalienable right: the right to deal with their own property as they saw fit. Gold, no matter what its special characteristics, is, after all, just another form of property."

"If you are like most people, including me, and you've got one house ... it turns out that under current law you can't modify that mortgage if you are in bankruptcy," Obama told a townhall meeting as he campaigned for an $800 billion economic stimulus package being debated by lawmakers. "That makes no sense ... that is forcing a lot of people into foreclosure," Obama said. "This is a piece of legislation that I strongly support."