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EDITOR'S NOTE: The U.S. Trade & Development Agency (USTDA), an independent White House agency, in recent weeks awarded several contracts and separately launched multiple initiatives in nations including Colombia, Egypt. Nigeria, South Africa, Vietnam, and Turkey. U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor posts these news briefs to encourage readers to ponder -- and comment on -- the question: are these relatively small expenditures a worthwhile investment of U.S. taxpayer dollars to promote global U.S. trade, or are they unjustifiable transfers of wealth from the taxpayer to businesses and to U.S. client states? We leave it up to the reader to decide....

The first round of Palestinian infrastucture contracts worth upwards of $750 million were awarded this week by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The Infrastructure Needs Project Phase II (Solicitation #RFP294-2010-108), as the USAID endeavor is known, will help the Palestinians build or improve public works initially in the West Bank and, "if conditions permit, in Gaza" at a later time. Task orders could be awarded under this indefinite quantity contract (IQC) for initiatives including: • Transportation networks such as primary and secondary roads, bridges and/or other transportation infrastructure; • Water systems including the supply, storage, treatment, transmission and/or...

In Mauston, it’s easier for the School District to fire teachers. In Jefferson County, seniority no longer determines who is laid off or promoted. In Waukesha County, road maintenance workers can’t count on overtime pay when they work odd hours. In New Berlin, teachers work longer days and can wear school sweatshirts on only a limited number of days. Across Wisconsin, school districts and local governments are replacing union contracts with policy manuals that give public administrators a clear upper hand for the first time in 50 years under a state law that essentially ends union rights for most public...

U.S. Could Infuse $300 Million Into Upcoming Elections -- OverseasBy Steve Peacock, U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor (Nov. 11, 2011)Nearly $300 million in contracts could be awarded to help the U.S. provide “technical leadership in the field of electoral and political processes” in foreign nations. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will use private contractors to provide “rapid-response, one-time only” assistance as well as “iterative,” or repeated, goods and services, according to an updated solicitation (#SOL-OAA-11-000037) that U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor located via a routine search of the FedBizOpps database. USAID currently is carrying out such assistance projects...

It’s over: the cast members of The Simpsons have agreed to new two-year deals with series producer 20th Century Fox TV and, with them locked in, Fox has renewed the veteran series for two more seasons. Both sides reportedly made concessions from their original demands, with the cast abandoning their quest for a piece of the series’ lucrative back-end and the studio upping their previous final offer for a 45% salary reduction. (The number I had heard and reported earlier in the day was for a cut in the range of 30% from the actors’ current paychecks of $440,000). The...

DoD Prepares Follow-Up to $15 Billion Global Counterdrug ContractsA privately contracted, five-year global counterdrug program valued upwards of $15 billion is one year away from expiring—and the U.S. Dept. of Defense (DoD) wants to assess the capabilities of potential prime contractors in advance of the August 23, 2012, expiration date. The DoD Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office (CNTPO) on Aug. 2 issued a Special Notice (Solicitation # W9113MCNTPO) announcing its intentions to “issue a follow-on procurement” to perpetuate that endeavor. The U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, on behalf of the CNTPO, in 2007 issued a multiple...

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...

There’s a whole lot of wrangling in the news today here in the US about bonuses and contracts and such. I thought it might be a nice idea to put forth this Christian’s opinion on how God views contracts which are synonymous with covenants in my opinion. The first promise God made that I can think of was that He promised not to allow anyone to kill Cain after Cain slew Abel and did God keep that promise? Yep (Genesis 4). The first covenant was with Noah and subsequently all mankind. It is found in Genesis 9 where God promised...

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."

In July, when heating oil was approaching $5 a gallon and the so-called experts were saying crude was headed to $200 and beyond, millions of homeowners were flipping coins. Heads, they'd commit to pay $4.50 to $4.75 a gallon for heating oil this winter; tails, they'd gamble it wouldn't going to $6 as predicted. In Connecticut, heads came up about 200,000 times. And as soon as those homeowners signed contracts with their suppliers, crude prices crashed 60 percent in less than four months. Today, heating oil can be had for as little as $2.40, c.o.d. As awful as those contracts...

Iraq Cancels Six No-Bid Oil Deals United Press International 9/11/2008 URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=66533 The Iraqi government said it has canceled six oil contracts with foreign companies that were awarded in June in a no-bid arrangement. One-year contracts with Shell, Chevron, Total, BP, ExxonMobil and others, meant to increase Iraqi oil production by a 500,000 barrels a day, were canceled after Democratic U.S. senators complained the deals could interfere with Iraqi efforts to pass an energy policy law and reach a revenue-sharing agreement among Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites, The New York Times reported Thursday. To go ahead with the no-bid contracts "would...

Washington, D.C. - Here's a new reason for taxpayer dismay: There's increasing evidence that companies may be protesting government contract awards as a strategy to negotiate their way into contracts or to derail an award process already in place. ... In February, IBM protested the Federal Bureau of Investigation's award of a $1 billion contract to Lockheed Martin (nyse: LMT - news - people ). Big Blue dropped its dispute two months later when Lockheed announced it would use IBM as a subcontractor.

Efforts by utility regulators to reopen costly long-term electricity supply contracts struck at the height of the California energy crisis were deflected by the U.S. Supreme Court in a ruling yesterday. The decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia sent the case back to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, with instructions to determine if the public interest was harmed by energy supply contracts signed in 2001. The case was filed by Public Utility District No. 1 of Snohomish County, Wash., which entered into a long-term electricity supply contract with the Morgan Stanley Capital Group. As the crisis waned, prices dropped, but...

Iraq's Oil Ministry has approved 35 companies it will allow to bid for soon-to-be announced tenders to develop oil and gas fields. The largest oil companies in the world -- ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Conoco Phillips, Chevron -- all qualified, as did firms of a variety of sizes and nationalities. The announcement Monday on the ministry's Web site is a major move that could bring foreign oil companies en masse into Iraq since the third-largest oil sector in the world was nationalized three decades ago. It takes place as the ministry attempts to increase oil and gas production as a new...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. State Department's renewal of Blackwater's contract to provide security in Iraq "is bad news," an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said. Blackwater guards shot and killed 17 people, including women and children, last September, prompting an outcry and protest from Iraqi officials. "This is bad news," al-Maliki adviser Sami al-Askari said. "I personally am not happy with this, especially because they have committed acts of aggression, killed Iraqis, and this has not been resolved yet positively for families of victims." About 25,000 private contractors from three companies protect diplomats, reconstruction workers and...

International Business Machines Corp. has been temporarily banned from new business with the federal government and is being investigated by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia over a contract awarded by the Environmental Protection Agency, the company said Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - IBM is under investigation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over an $80 million bid it made in 2006 to modernize EPA financial systems and has been suspended from seeking new contracts with all U.S. agencies, the company said on Monday.

Address only per protocol. www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080308/NEWS01/80308067

A big protest is planned for Monday afternoon, ahead of the latest public hearing on the proposed statewide tollway. Lots of landowners are upset about the state’s plan to build a tollway from Mexico to northeast Texas. There have already been several town hall meetings about the Trans-Texas Corridor. Most of the people who have spoken out about the plan say it will put them out of business. But state officials argue the tollway is necessary to keep up with the growing population in Texas. Monday’s meeting is being held in Huntsville. It starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Walker...

Highways The Texas Department of Transportation plans to let contracts for $4.1 billion in construction in 2008 are in jeopardy after having to return around $950 million to Washington over the past 18 months. The mood in Austin is uncertain, although voters approved Proposition 12 in November, authorizing the next Texas Legislature in 2009 to issue up to $5 billion in bonds (paid from general revenue) to build highway projects. A required independent audit of the Texas Department of Transportation during 2007 recommended that the department “should continue to pursue Comprehensive Development Agreements (CDA) and toll pricing at levels that...

Billions of dollars are pouring into Iraq to fight the war and rebuild the country, and companies are vying for a piece of the action. In some cases, contractors paid kickbacks to military contracting officers to gain the upper hand. For Eric W. Barton of Tennessee, he may have had an Barton is accused of having an affair with Air Force Capt. Sherrie L. Remington, a former contracting officer in charge of awarding some of the lucrative work. The Army claims Barton used a six-month relationship with Remington to his advantage to win at least $2.5 million in contracts for...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 19, 2007 – The Defense Department has let contracts for an additional 2,400 mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, bringing the total number of the vehicles ordered to 8,800. “We’re going to do everything we can to get as many vehicles in theater as fast as we can,” a senior Pentagon official, speaking on background, said yesterday. The MRAP is designed to survive blasts from improvised explosive devices and armor-piercing IEDs known as explosively formed penetrators or projectiles, the main killers of American servicemembers in Iraq. The vehicles have a V-shaped hull that deflects shrapnel, providing more effective protection for...

BAGHDAD, Oct. 17 — Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran.

While waiting to be confirmed by the White House for a top civilian post at the Air Force last year, Charles D. Riechers was out of work and wanted a paycheck. So the Air Force helped arrange a job through an intelligence contractor that required him to do no work for the company, according to documents and interviews. For two months, Riechers held the title of senior technical adviser and received about $13,400 a month at Commonwealth Research Institute, or CRI, a nonprofit firm in Johnstown, Pa., according to his resume. But during that time he actually worked for Sue...

LONDON - The chief U.S. missile defense negotiator defended plans to place anti-missile sites in Eastern Europe, saying Wednesday that the system could prevent a war with Iran by building an effective deterrent. "Our intent is to address emerging threats in the Middle East," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State John Rood said in an interview with The Associated Press during a visit to London to attend a conference on defense trade. "Countries like Iran are developing long-range missile systems. And we're concerned not only about the emerging capability but of the hostile intent from countries in the region."

# Story Highlights # Pentagon investigating criminal charges related to $6 billion worth of contracts # Contracts are for equipment and services needed in Iraq and Afghanistan # 90 investigations and 29 audits underway; about half are for procurement fraud # 16 linked to the theft of money or property and violations of U.S. export rule

How does renegotiation of contracts not fall under consideration? How do athletes, etc., get away with renegotiating the contract and why do the institutions not sue for the first contract agreed upon?

WASHINGTON, July 18, 2007 – Thousands of disabled military veterans have enrolled in a governmentwide program that’s designed to help them succeed in new careers as business owners, a Defense Department official said here today. The Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business Office was established at the Pentagon by an October 2004 presidential executive order and federal legislation that stipulates 3 percent of all annual military contracting will go to small businesses operated by service-disabled veterans, Anthony R. Martoccia, director of the office of small business programs at the Pentagon, told veterans’ service organization members during a conference call today. Military...

It’s a big, evil secret behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq - a 100,000 strong mercenary force that the Bush administration has hired to do the U.S. government’s riskiest and dirtiest operations. It works behind the scenes and is virtually above the law. Its name is Blackwater USA -- and it’s a private army with a license to kill. More evil still is the fact that Blackwater USA is run by a multimillionaire Christian fundamentalist who has also bankrolled President Bush’s election campaigns. And what makes the whole exercise so frightening is that American mainstream media - supposedly the champions...

HANOI (AFP) - A Vietnamese man has contracted the deadly bird flu virus, becoming the country's second human case since late 2005, a health official said Saturday. The 19-year-old man tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the virus early this week after being admitted to the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Hanoi, a doctor there told AFP. The doctor, who asked not to be named, said the victim had been admitted on May 19 and was now in a stable condition. The daily Lao Dong said the patient had been working for a poultry slaughterhouse in the capital before...

The value of federal contracts awarded without competitive bidding has soared since President Bush took office in 2000, according to a new study to be released Monday by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. Federal contracting grew from $203 billion in fiscal 2000 to $377 billion by fiscal 2005. During the same period, the value of federal contracts awarded without competitive bidding more than doubled, from $67 billion to $145 billion, the study found. At the same time, government oversight of contracting has weakened, according to the study's author, Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the center...

LOS ANGELES -- The California Department of Justice issued a new confidentiality policy Monday spelling out when information on its contracts may be withheld from state records. An Associated Press investigation had found tens of millions of dollars of contracts were improperly shielded from public view. "This policy change will absolutely ensure those things don't happen again," said agency spokesman Nathan Barankin. The AP investigation found that information on scores of Justice Department contracts, many of them let without bids, was erroneously labeled "confidential" and omitted from computerized state records, cloaking it from public sight. The hidden contracts included spending...