Posted on 01/04/2014 2:59:57 PM PST by yoe
Truth to tell, The Scrapbook has gotten as good a laugh as anyone out of the saga of John C. Beale, the retired Environmental Protection Agency official—Princeton grad, onetime deputy assistant administrator in the Office of Air and Radiation, congressionally certified expert on global warming—who has been sentenced to 32 months in prison for stealing nearly a million dollars from the federal government.
As often happens, Mr. Beale began his life of crime on a modest scale: padding expense accounts, arranging first-class travel for himself (at EPA expense), and taking off one day a week—allegedly on government business—to relax at home. But one day became two, and then Mr. Beale would be gone for weeks and months at a time. Indeed, between 2000 and June 2008, his desk at the EPA (annual salary and benefits: $206,000) seems to have been unoccupied for a total of two-and-a-half years.
The best part, however, is the reason Mr. Beale gave the EPA for his frequent absences: He was on special assignment for the CIA, he would explain, sometimes at the fabled Directorate of Operations in Langley, sometimes on interagency task forces in Washington—and sometimes in the mountains of Pakistan, fighting the Taliban. Mr. Beale was not just a committed environmentalist and authoritative voice on global warming; he was every schoolboy’s dream Secret Agent as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
“I am told there are employees buried in the bowels of these humongous government agencies, who answer to no one and have been on those pay rolls for entire careers...doing little more than staying out of sight.”
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That is certainly true. It would also be true at ANY Federal agency’s headquarters where such “phantoms” would not be unusual. Where they need to sign in for timekeeping purposes it would be easy for these “non-accountable” federal employees to slip out. I read in the paper that more and more federal employees are “telecommuting”. Telecommuting would simply make non-work more convenient and even less detectable.
In “field” level offices, I’m sure such instances of non-work would be comparatively rare.
Isn’t a certified expert on Global Warming by definition a charlatan?
No doubt in my mind.
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I met one at the VA office in Fayetteville Arkansas years ago.
we had an appointment for 9:00, when his office opened. No show so I went looking for him. He was in the cafeteria having coffee, and when confronted, he told me he did not start till Noon!
I curtly told him (Loud so the whole cafeteria could hear me) that he had better get to his office as there was a line of people there waiting to see him.
He refused to budge, looking straight ahead. I stood there glaring at him. finally after several minutes, he got up and went to his office.
Mr. Mitty, I presume?
Reminds me of Ens. Pulver in this great scene from "Mr. Roberts":
FOURTEEN MONTHS!
The EPA is an enemy of ordinary Americans. Instead, the states and the interior department should assume any of the legitimate functions of the EPA.
I’d rather have a useless bureaucrat, than a malicious one.
My guess is that mister Beale is not the only pathological liar in the upper echelons of the EPA.
Enemy of the
People of
America
I work for the CIA and haven’t shown up for 2 years - I told them I’m under cover in the EPA. I think someone alerted the EPA because I’m getting two checks and two end of year bonuses for doing two superior jobs. It’s easy to be perfect when nobody sees you make a mistake...
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