Free Republic

ALBANY, N.Y. -- MSNBC pundit Keith Olbermann, who spotlights misbehavior nightly with his "Worst Person in the World" recognition, owes New York state for unpaid business taxes, according to a tax warrant notice. And his conservative counterparts and bloggers are making sure the debt is fodder in the ongoing political commentators' feud. Olbermann, the host of "Countdown," owes New York $2,269.50, according to a tax warrant obtained by The Associated Press. State Tax and Finance Department spokesman Tom Bergin said the debt recorded against the TV host's Olbermann Broadcasting Empire Inc., based in Los Angeles, is still open. MSNBC spokesman...

St. Sabina's website continues to go after political opponents: Criminalizing gun ownership encouraged, State Reps. and Senators who support Second Amendment are targeted 6/2/2008 12:00:00 PM -CCI In spite of the so-called "agreement" between Cardinal George and Rev. Pfleger, stating that the embattled pastor of St. Sabina's would refrain from all political activism, the web site for St. Sabina's continues to be engaged in politics. A long time opponent of the Second Amendment to the Constitution, Rev. Pfleger attracted national attention last year (which was his goal) when he and Jesse Jackson were arrested after invading a gun shop and...

The inspector general for the Defense Department said yesterday that the Pentagon cannot account for almost $15 billion worth of goods and services ranging from trucks, bottled water and mattresses to rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns that were bought from contractors in the Iraq reconstruction effort. The Pentagon did not have the proper documentation, including receipts, vouchers, signatures, invoices or other paperwork, for $7.8 billion that American and Iraqi contractors were paid for phones, folders, paint, blankets, Nissan trucks, laundry services and other items, according to a 69-page audit released to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. An...

Texas Department of Transportation that claims it has no money for roads uses $20 million in gas tax funds to build a park. Woodall Rodgers ParkThe Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation announced yesterday that the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) would hand over $20 million in gas tax funds to help build a 5.2 acre park near downtown Dallas. The $67 million park is intended to serve as a model public-private partnership with a restaurant, a children's playground and a dog park. It will have no roads. "The park... will connect Uptown, Downtown and the Arts District, and is expected to...

the only way to keep anything honest is to get all the cards on the table where we can all check everything together now here is my proposal for electronic voting with audit procedure first, use touch screen voting machines. this technology has been beautifully developed in game machines and is perfect for voting. fast, easy to use when you have finished voting the computer should: 1 print your ballot for you. fold it and put it in your pocket. 2 write a copy of your ballot to the local hard disk appending it to its local ballot file (...

The state auditor is criticizing the California State University's practice of giving large salary increases to top executives and awarding outgoing administrators hefty paychecks for doing almost no work. The audit urges the CSU board of trustees to change its policies. It says some administrators benefited from questionable compensation, moving reimbursements and deals to purchase homes near universities. State lawmakers sought the audit after media reports that the trustees gave more than $4 million to departing executives over 10 years - despite their doing little work. Trustees defended the CSU's compensation practices by saying they are needed to attract the...

How much housecleaning has taken place in the United Nations’ scandal-ridden, billion-dollar procurement department? And will it continue? Those are the questions raised — and only partially answered — in a 46-page report on the efforts of the U.N.’s special procurement task force that has just been submitted to the U.N. General Assembly. The report is signed by Inga-Britt Ahlenius, head of the U.N.’s watchdog Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), who also supervises the 20-member task force.

Do you fear the Internal Revenue Service, even though you have done nothing wrong? Most Americans do, and for good reason. For decades, the courts, congressional hearings and the press have documented a steady stream of abuses by IRS personnel and federal prosecutors dealing with tax cases. Last week, a federal judge dismissed charges against 13 former employees of the accounting firm KPMG because the government had violated their rights, in what had been billed by the government as its biggest-ever tax shelter case. The basic functions of government are to protect person and property and to ensure liberty. Far...

China's green audit put on hold By Richard Spencer in Beijing Last Updated: 2:01pm BST 23/07/2007 China's attempts to project a new "green" image suffered a serious blow when it was revealed a revolutionary attempt to estimate the environmental cost of its runaway economic growth had been put on indefinite hold. China's cities have been listed as the most polluted in the world In a briefing to local newspapers, the scientist given the enormous task of calculating China's "green GDP" said the project had been effectively killed off by political opposition. His outspoken denunciation of the barriers put in his...

Audit finds U.N. violates own rules in North Korea By Evelyn Leopold Fri Jun 1, 8:29 PM ET U.N. agencies violated their own rules in North Korea by employing national staff handpicked by the government and paying them in hard currency, according to a report by a U.N. board of auditors. But the report, an interim survey, did not find that large-scale U.N. funding had been diverted systematically. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who ordered the audit, said preliminary findings needed to be followed up with a visit to North Korea by the auditors, drawn from France, South Africa and the...

The state Department of Food and Agriculture is asking Attorney General Jerry Brown to investigate the Fresno-based California Tomato Commission after an audit turned up lavish spending on trips and meals. In several cases, employees and board members charged the commission for travel by family and friends. They also spent freely at board meetings, including a dinner meeting at which the bill included almost $600 worth of wine. The audit covered the 2003 through 2005 fiscal years. It did not provide a total for the spending deemed questionable. "The Tomato Commission operated like a private trade association, not a government...

he Texas state auditor has concluded that transportation officials used inflated numbers when they reported an $86 billion funding gap for highways and transportation projects. The audit released April 30 has a familiar ring to it because it is the second scathing review of transportation funding estimates this year in the state. State Auditor John Keel said the $86 billion estimate by Texas Department of Transportation officials should be more like $77.4 billion, but that’s not all. Nearly $38 billion of that estimate took into account undocumented cost estimates from city officials competing for shared transportation dollars. Keel’s team of...

Report says that more than $45 billion of the estimate is either in error or undocumented. The state auditor's office on Monday challenged the validity of more than half of a purported $86 billion shortfall in Texas transportation funding over the next generation and cautioned that the estimate "may not be reliable for making policy or funding decisions." That $86 billion, based on 2004 figures, has been cited repeatedly by Texas Department of Transportation officials and some legislators as a major reason for the state's increasing need for new toll roads. The number is a compilation of estimates from local...

Report says that more than $45 billion of the estimate is either in error or undocumented. The State Auditor's Office this morning released a report challenging the validity of almost half of a purported $86 billion shortfall in Texas transportation funding over the next generation, and cautioning that the gap estimate "may not be reliable for making policy or funding decisions." That $86 billion figure has been cited repeatedly by Texas Department of Transportation officials and some legislators as a major reason for the state's increasing need for new toll roads. The number is a compilation of estimates from local...

The company said after U.S. markets closed that an audit panel had found accounting errors and evidence of misconduct. Dell also said it will delay filing its Form 10-K until it has completed an internal investigation.

The state representative of a district where support for the Trans-Texas Corridor is hard to find filed legislation this week in hope additional time would allow for a better plan. Rep. Rick Hardcastle, R-Vernon, filed House Bill 3831 in the Texas House of Representatives, which aims to halt the transportation project until improvements have been made on Interstate Highway 35 in Cooke County through the cities of Valley View and Gainesville just south of the Red River. The improvements include widening of the current lanes on I-35 and the construction of additional lanes, which are currently under review by regional...

AUSTIN – Four years of simmering frustration boiled over at a recent Texas Senate committee hearing with just one thing on the agenda: toll roads. An overflow crowd bashed and booed the Texas Transportation Commission in front of mostly like-minded senators. For eight hours, lawmakers and audience members alike questioned the state's increasing reliance on tolls. "We can't simply build roads at any cost," Sen. John Carona said to cheers. "We've got to build them smarter." Some argue that toll roads are the only smart play in a state where the Legislature has refused to raise the tax on gasoline,...

The Trans-Texas Corridor, the Goliath of Texas road projects, is taking a real bruising from the slingshot crowd these days, with so many Davids piling up stones that critics and supporters alike are beginning to believe it may be stoppable. In the last few weeks, more than a dozen bills have been introduced in the both the Texas State and House to either stop the project cold or put enough restrictions on it to chill the interest of private investors. In late February, a state audit report revealed that millions of public dollars have secretly been spent on the project...

Hundreds of people angry with the state's toll road contracts sounded off before state senators Thursday. Public hearings on toll roads and the Trans Texas Corridor began early Thursday morning. Senators invited public input because state lawmakers will make some important decisions this session about how to pay for highways. So many people showed up that crowds were forced into overflow rooms. The Texas Department of Transportation and toll roads have found many critics, largely because of the private companies hired to build and run them. There are also questions about how much taxpayers pay for the roads. Speakers sounded...

Audit: U.N. Unit Boss Used 2 Birth Dates Published: 2/27/07, 4:45 PM EDT By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS GENEVA (AP) - The head of the U.N. intellectual property agency gave an apparently false birth date that made him nine years older when he applied to join the body, an inaccuracy that may have helped him get hired and win promotions, a United Nations audit showed. The confidential report, obtained by The Associated Press, said Kamil Idris changed his age back to the younger one last year - more than two decades after he had joined the World Intellectual Property Organization -...

The Trans-Texas Corridor, Gov. Rick Perry’s massive transportation project, hit some speed bumps Friday. A sharply-worded report from the State Auditor’s Office was released - and a member of the Republican leadership in the House filed a bill to repeal the plan, which could encompass up to 8,000 miles. Brenham Rep. Lois Kolkhorst’s bill is almost identical to one already filed by Democrat state Rep. David Leibowitz of Helotes, near San Antonio. With lawmakers from both sides of the aisle questioning the project, organizers of a March 2 are hoping thousands of Texans will make their way to the state...

A State Auditor’s Office report on the Texas Department of Transportation and the Trans-Texas Corridor set for public release today estimates a $105.6 billion price tag for the TTC-35 portion alone of the massive transportation project. The TTC-35 represents 14 percent, or 560 miles, of the Trans-Texas Corridor’s proposed 4,000 miles of roadway criss-crossing the state. A 2002 estimate by TxDOT placed the cost for the entire Trans-Texas Corridor at between $145 and $184 billion. Taken as a whole, the Trans-Texas Corridor on its completion could become “the longest network of toll roads in the world,” according to the audit....

WASHINGTON - Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking among anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11 — despite no evidence linking them to terror activity, a Justice Department audit found Tuesday. Overall, nearly all of the terrorism-related statistics on investigations, referrals and cases examined by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine were either diminished or inflated. Only two of 26 sets of department data reported between 2001 and 2005 were accurate, the audit found. Responding, a Justice spokesman pointed to figures showing that prosecutors in the department's headquarters for the most part either accurately...

ST. PAUL - Most nonprofits have to compete for state money, but Let's Go Fishing of Minnesota got its $325,000 grant directly from lawmakers who wrote the Willmar-based group into a big education bill. Also written into law were grants for Hunger Solutions, a statewide coalition of foodshelves, and the Living at Home/Block Nurse Program, which helps seniors get support services and health care to stay in their homes. Legislative Auditor James Nobles said Friday it's time for lawmakers to quit hand-picking which groups get state grants.

I am being audited by the IRS for 2005 and 2004. Has anyone gone through one of these before? Advice needed, thanks!

October 7, 2006 New York -- Six officials of the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls Club stole $1.2 million from the group, money meant for needy kids and seniors, a city probe has found. Investigations Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn calls it "disgusting" - the worst case of wrongdoing by a non-profit contractor she's seen since taking office. Thank goodness the thieves will be going to jail for a very long time - and paying back every cent, and then some. Well, actually, that's not quite true. In fact, nobody is going to jail. Not even for a single day. And...

Attorney General Tom Reilly is seeking a special grand jury to grill more than a dozen key witnesses in the Big Dig manslaughter probe, moving swiftly after documents revealed widespread knowledge of ceiling problems in the tunnel where Milena Del Valle was killed, a law enforcment source said. The grand jury, expected to be convened Oct. 3, will hear evidence for six months as investigators seek criminal indictments against officials involved in construction of the I-90 Seaport Connector Tunnel. Several key officials have already retained lawyers, the source said. “Nothing we have seen to date takes us off the path...

(English-language translation) Comptroller Manuel Díaz Saldaña yesterday presented to a legislative committee his principal findings of audits of the Municipality of San Juan when former Governor Sila M. Calderón was mayor, among these “extravagant and unnecessary expenses” towards supporting the Navy’s withdrawal from Vieques and promoting her image. The official published 18 reports between June 1999 and March 2005 on fiscal operations in City Hall and in the Communications Central Office during Calderón’s incumbency as mayor and governor. “The principal findings published in the March 14, 2005 audit report (reveal) extravagant and unnecessary expenses and the use of public funds...

A urologist charged California's prison system $2,036 an hour to treat inmates. An orthopedic surgeon billed the state for 30 hours' work - for a single day. The examples are contained in an audit released Tuesday that found rampant waste in how California's prison health care system spends money on outside doctors, nurses and laboratories. The lax spending practices have cost California taxpayers millions, according to the audit by the state controller's office. Prison health care spending soared from $153 million in 2001 to $821 million this year - an increase of $668 million, or 437 percent. "Waste, abuse and...

Budget analysts changed employee time cards to allow the San Diego City Attorney's Office to funnel extra money from lucrative special city accounts, according to results of an internal investigation released yesterday. City Attorney Michael Aguirre said the improper accounting, which took place from 1997 to 2004, included time cards being altered to reflect work for the wrong department, and part-time work billed as full-time. Questionable billing of other city departments continued in his office through this week, Aguirre acknowledged, even though he said he put new policies in place to stop the activities within a month after he took...

One morning earlier this month, the pilot of a Gulfstream jet radioed a tiny airfield high in the Colorado mountains, asking for permission to land. On board the private plane, which had taken off two hours earlier, were two senior members of the controversial Church of Scientology. As it taxied to a halt at the end of the runway at Telluride Airport, the emissaries were met by a blacked-out sports utility vehicle and driven three miles to the secluded 250-acre estate of actor Tom Cruise. Their mission was not, however, to minister to the Hollywood superstar. Instead, their appointment was...

WASHINGTON - The Homeland Security Department wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars last year on iPods, dog booties, beer-making equipment and designer jackets, congressional investigators have concluded. More than 100 laptop computers and a dozen boats also bought by Homeland Security employees are missing, the investigators found. Poor training, lax oversight and rampant confusion over what employees are allowed to buy with government-issued purchase cards left Homeland Security "vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse," according to a draft report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative and auditing arm. The report was to be released Wednesday by a Senate panel...

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez on Tuesday called for a legislative audit of California State University after revelations that the nation's largest public university system had secretly paid millions of dollars to outgoing campus presidents and top executives. "I'm deeply troubled by allegations that former high-level CSU officials have been given dubious positions after their tenures, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars to do no discernible work while students have seen their tuition rise almost 30 percent in the past three years," Nunez, D-Los Angeles, said in a statement. An investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle showed that at least seven...

After Katrina, the most destructive hurricane and natural disaster to ever hit the United States, was over, the nation's media, along with many politicians attacked FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency www.fema.gov/). Many cited gross incompetence, while they hung the organization's director, Mike Brown, from pillar to post. Also, the Katrina disaster was a great opportunity for some to deny responsibility--while blaming others for the suffering which ensued in the aftermath of the storm. Brown lost his job at FEMA and the Bush administration was said to be racially insensitive because many of the victims in New Orleans were people of...

EARLY LAST MONTH, the accounting firm of Ernst and Young released a report concluding that the "nonperforming" loans of China's banks totaled $911 billion (40 percent of China's GDP)--a figure that far exceeds the Chinese government's own estimate of $164 billion. Beijing's response to the report was not subtle: "The report not only seriously distorts the actual assets quality of the Chinese banking sector," but "its conclusions are absurd and incomprehensible." Ernst and Young withdrew the report the next day, citing fundamental errors in the analysis.But was the report really that flawed? Or was the firm's report more right than...

A shareholder group is gaining momentum in its efforts to pressure companies to disclose charitable giving -- with donations linked to the Rev. Jesse Jackson... The National Legal and Policy Center has stepped up efforts to require corporations to disclose more details about their donations... The Rainbow/PUSH Citizen Education Fund, which in 2001 provided payments to Jackson's former mistress. The Church Falls, Va.-based non-profit group hit two shareholders meetings this week -- Boeing on Monday and PepsiCo Inc. on Wednesday. "Many shareholders would certainly object to their money going to a controversial and divisive figure like Jesse Jackson," said Peter...

An independent state audit into University of California compensation practices portrays a pay structure run amok, where officials regularly bent the rules to secure better deals for top administrators and a shoddy centralized bookkeeping system provided inadequate checks and balances on pay matters. As a result, the university overpaid at least one employee nearly $130,000, padded the retirement-covered compensation of others, and provided housing allowances and other perks far in excess of amounts allowed under policy. The audit said many of the deals were not reported to the public and UC's own governing board. All told, UC handed out $334...

A state audit found University of California administrators skirted their own pay rules, giving senior managers millions more in bonuses, relocation packages and other perks than their publicly reported salaries. The report, released Tuesday, is the latest in a series of probes highlighting irregularities in how the 10-campus system rewards its leaders. The revelations, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, have been an embarrassment for the prestigious system, particularly since they cover a period when UC officials raised student fees substantially in response to state funding cuts. The audit drew sharp responses from legislators, with state Sen. Jackie Speier,...

For the last decade, University of California leaders systematically failed to disclose to UC's governing board the details of pay packages and perquisites granted to senior executives, despite policies requiring such disclosure, according to an audit released Monday. .... At UCLA on Monday, Dynes noted that the situation was especially troubling in light of a similar controversy more than a decade ago, when UC was criticized for excessive compensation to departing executives. .... The report noted about $23,000 in undisclosed expenses for Dynes [the current UC president .... The report also noted that some compensation for a number of employees,...

A legislative audit is calling for tighter eligibility procedures for Minnesota health and welfare benefits after finding widespread errors in the evaluations of noncitizens, including illegal immigrants. County workers made errors in seven of 10 cases in which they determined eligibility of noncitizens for benefits, according to the evaluation, which was released Wednesday morning by the Legislative Auditor's office. Most of the procedural errors made no difference, but the audit found that 18 percent of the mistakes could have resulted in incorrect rulings on eligibility status. That means the state could have paid for benefits for some people who weren't...

WASHINGTON - From Iraq reconstruction to Hurricane Katrina, poor contracting oversight enables Alaska Native corporations to capitalize on multimillion-dollar no-bid deals at a potential cost to taxpayers and small businesses, a federal audit says. A report by the Government Accountability Office, obtained Tuesday, indicates gaps in the overseeing of federal contracts, which have boomed in recent years in part due to provisions backed by Sen. Ted Stevens (news, bio, voting record), R-Alaska. The review of 16 no-bid contracts found that administration agencies routinely picked Alaskan firms — which can be designated legally as "small and disadvantaged," regardless of their size...

WASHINGTON - Federal auditors on Thursday laid out a scenario of omissions, missteps and bureaucratic nightmares that caused a loss of money and other donations sent from abroad to help victims of Hurricane Katrina. Lawmakers at a congressional hearing on the subject reacted harshly to a Government Accountability Office report that attributed the errors, which involved as many as eight government agencies, to the United States' lack of experience as a recipient of huge amounts of aid from others. Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), the House Government Reform Committee's top Democrat, said, "This is bureaucracy at its worse,...

Auditors found questionable spending by state Education Secretary Alan Bersin when he was superintendent of schools in San Diego. The audit, conducted for the San Diego Unified School District by a law firm, Loeb & Loeb, looked at Bersin's handling of more than $630,000 in tax-deductible donations made by individuals and corporations to an education innovation fund. The audit said Bersin spent the money as he wanted, often reimbursing himself for personal and business expenses. There were also undocumented reimbursements and possible double-billings, auditors said. School district officials have forwarded the audit to the state attorney general, Fair Political Practices...

Legislators have decided to launch a formal audit of the spending practices of the state commission led by actor/director Rob Reiner, in the wake of news stories examining whether the commission spent taxpayer dollars for an ad campaign that promoted Reiner's political efforts at universal preschool programs. The audit, which officials say could take 4 or 5 months, was approved this afternoon by the Joint Legislative Audit Commitee. Reiner, the driving force behind June's Proposition 82 to create taxpayer-funded preschool for all children, has served for several years as the chairman of the state First 5 Commission, which focuses on...

Governor Must Immediately Replace Reiner Strickland: “Controller needs to freeze Reiner funding and conduct immediate accountability audit” Sacramento, CA– Taxpayer Advocate Tony Strickland today called upon Governor Schwarzenegger to “immediately replace Rob Reiner on the First 5 California Children and Families Commission. His term has expired and nothing prevents the Governor from selecting an appointee who will restore the transparency and credibility to taxpayers when it comes to how government spends their tax dollars.” The firestorm of controversy has continued unabated since a Los Angeles Times story on Monday exposed a series of abuses orchestrated by Reiner and a small...

The New Mexico Labor Department has ordered what it calls a routine audit of the state Republican Party, putting the GOP on notice that the agency may be poring over a long list of confidential party documents. State Republican Party executive director Marta Kramer said Saturday she suspects politics from Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson's administration is the reason for the audit. A state computer each quarter randomly selects 200 to 250 New Mexico businesses for audits to determine if they're complying with unemployment insurance laws, Labor Secretary Conroy Chino said. The audits are required by the federal government, he added....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- NASA Inspector General Robert W. Cobb is under investigation for complaints that he failed to investigate safety violations and retaliated against whistle-blowers, according to The Washington Post. Current and former employees of Cobb's office alleged that he suppressed investigations within NASA and penalized his own investigators when they pursued cases, the Post reported on its Web site Thursday night. At least 16 people provided documents and written complaints about Cobb to the Integrity Committee of the President's Council on Integrity and Efficiency, a group charged with investigating misconduct by agency inspectors general or their staffs, the Post...

Audit: Iraq Occupation Authorities Squandered Aid Sunday, January 29, 2006 DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iraqi money gambled away in the Philippines. Thousands spent on a swimming pool that was never used. An elevator repaired so poorly that it crashed, killing people. A U.S. government audit found American-led occupation authorities squandered tens of millions of dollars that were supposed to be used to rebuild Iraq through undocumented spending and outright fraud. Excerpt. Click link for full story.

REDACTION LOOPHOLE: ACCESS TO THE BARRETT REPORT   by Mia T, 01.20.06     he judges who ostensibly redacted 120 pages of the Barrett report established a means by which the American people can see those redactions: Any member of Congress can legally request access to the redactions and can publish them.. The serious '"culture of corruption" in the clinton DOJ and IRS that is detailed by the report makes one wonder about the nature of the crimes and abuse that the clintons felt compelled to redact. Even a small subset of what we do know about the redactions...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The state auditor will examine compensation practices at the University of California that allowed the system to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses and perks without public input, after a legislative committee ordered the review Tuesday. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angles, requested the audit, calling the university's actions all the more glaring because they came when student fees were being increased to close budget gaps. "There has been a flagrant disregard for the use of taxpayer dollars by the UC president's office," Nunez said during an appearance before the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. "They...