Free Republic

Amrish Mahajan, former president of failed Mutual Bank of Harvey and a major fundraiser for imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, has been barred from future participation in the banking industry under a newly released regulatory order. Mr. Mahajan consented, without admitting or denying unsafe or unsound banking practices, to a May 1 order by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. prohibiting him from participating “in any manner” in the conduct of the affairs of any federally insured institution. ... Mr. Mahajan was known for his political connections, particularly to Mr. Blagojevich. Mutual Bank briefly entered the realm of national politics after...

Andy Stern wasn’t kidding when he publicly stated the most famous rallying cry of Communism:[1] Stern professed, “Workers of the World Unite? It’s not just a slogan anymore.” Snip SIGA Technologies, Inc. is a company specializing in the development of pharmaceutical agents to combat bio-warfare pathogens and it was announced on June 21, 2010 that Andy Stern is joining SIGA’s Board of Directors. But wait, it gets even better… SIGA is also a Federal contractor for the government. For a list of SIGA’s contracts with the Federal government, go to: http://www.usaspending.gov/search?query=&searchtype=JTdFZnElM0Q…. SNIP Without question, Andy Stern’s new position at SIGA...

California’s health insurance exchange has awarded $184 million in contracts without the competitive bidding and oversight that is standard practice across state government, including deals that sent millions of dollars to a firm whose employees have long-standing ties to the agency's executive director. Covered California’s no-bid contracts were for a variety of services, ranging from public relations to paying for ergonomic adjustments to work stations, according to an Associated Press review of contracting records obtained through the state Public Records Act. Several of those contracts worth a total of $4.2 million went to a consulting firm, The Tori Group, whose...

Michelle Obama’s relationship with Princeton classmate Toni McCall Townes-Whitley, whose company earned the no-bid contract to design the disastrous Healthcare.Gov Obamacare website, continued after the Obamas moved into the White House. Townes-Whitley and her husband even enjoyed “Christmas with the Obamas” at the White House in December 2010, according to a Facebook album created by Townes-Whitley. Although neither Michelle Obama nor Townes-Whitley has discussed their relationship, the Christmas event took place just seven months after Townes-Whitley joined CGI Federal as a senior vice president. Townes-Whitley, Princeton class of ’85, leads CGI Federal’s Civilian Agency Programs (CAP) Business Unit, which earned...

The Office of Congressional Ethics voted unanimously last week to ask the U.S. Justice Department to review documents in the PMA Group pay-to-play scheme.The OCE, a bipartisan board created by congress and composed of private citizens, released a statement of May 27 saying that it would send the Justice Department "evidence [that] pertains to a factual finding by the OCE Board that certain persons and companies saw their campaign donations as affecting decisions about earmarks."The office has conducted seven investigations of the PMA Group, which is the lobbying firm at the center of an alleged scheme in which lawmakers...

A congressional ethics office asked the Justice Department on Thursday to review evidence it found suggesting that companies are providing campaign cash to lawmakers for no-bid contracts, and consider a criminal probe. The Office of Congressional Ethics investigation focused on companies that were clients of the once powerful lobby firm the PMA Group and sought earmarked contracts from lawmakers who sat on the House Appropriations committee. The referral was an end-run around the House ethics committee, which earlier this year declined to investigate the matter as the OCE recommended and said it found no substantiation that lawmakers were engaged...

Ford City, Pa. -- Rep. John P. Murtha's record of bringing home money from Washington -- at a current rate of $100 million a year -- has become the envy of Capitol Hill colleagues and a subject of grateful awe in a stretch of Pennsylvania desperate for new jobs. In Congress, Murtha beats everybody in loading legislation with earmarks, federal funds steered to chosen contractors without the usual reviews. But after two decades of Murtha-directed federal investment here, a look at the results shows the congressman's promises of jobs often fall short. In some cases, the federal government has spent...

The Senate approved Tara O’Toole’s nomination as Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security via voice vote last night. As we pointed out the day before, this should be of concern to anyone interested in making sure that billions in taxpayer dollars do not get funneled to a bio-security boondoggle brought to you by O’Toole and her close and corrupt ally John Murtha, who is currently under investigation for ethics violations. Under O’Toole’s jurisdiction now falls the decision concerning the Murtha-supported effort to make the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) “the...

A $15,000 federal grant for police computers in one Monongahela Valley city slipped unnoticed past council and was awarded without competitive bids to a firm run by the son of then-Mayor Ken Cole, city officials said today. The contract is one of dozens under scrutiny by federal investigators who are looking into defense firms with ties to U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Johnstown. Mr. Murtha, who chairs the powerful House Appropriations defense subcommittee, was instrumental in securing millions of dollars in grants through the Department of Justice to upgrade communications systems for small towns. In one of those towns, Monongahela,...

In tiny, cash-strapped Monongahela, Pa., the city clerk was stunned when federal investigators arrived this fall with a subpoena seeking information on a crime-fighting grant she'd never heard of. She takes pride in tracking every dollar in the municipal budget. The $15,000 federal grant was to buy police radios and other equipment to protect the city's 4,700 residents, but it had traveled an unusual route, never crossing the clerk's desk. Over the past five years, a local defense contractor with close ties to Rep. John P. Murtha, a Democrat who has represented southwestern Pennsylvania for three decades, has selected several...

Earmark critics on both sides of the aisle have teamed up to offer the first bipartisan bill that would deny earmarks to for-profit companies. Four Democrats, Reps. Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Ron Kind (Wis.), Adam Smith (Wash.) and Tim Walz (Minn.), joined GOP Reps. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Mark Kirk (Ill.) and John Campbell (Calif.) as the initial sponsors of the bill. “There’s a wide range of opinions [about what to do about earmarks] in this Congress, but we have a major problem,” said Kind. “It’s a bipartisan problem and we need a bipartisan solution.” President Obama has called...

Two members of the House Republican Select Committee on Earmark Reform have refused to sign off on the panel's proposed report, calling the recommendations toothless. GOP Reps. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) and Mike Simpson (Idaho), polar opposites on the issue of earmarks, both said the panel¹s recommendations will not lead to earmark reforms. “Frankly I think it’s show, I haven’t signed it for the same reason as Flake, because I don’t think it really does anything,” said Simpson, a proponent of earmarks. “Even though we’re on different points of view on the earmark reform thing, if you’re going to do something,...

Not long after Nelson Ludlow and his wife started a technology business in Port Townsend with money scraped together from friends, family and retirement accounts, they spent precious dollars in an unlikely way: They hired a lobbyist and started giving to a congressional campaign fund. ...

Halliburton's division Kellogg, Brown & Root has a long history of no-bid contracts with the government, but much more important, it was Brown & Root that made plenty of money during the Johnson Administration.

The Halliburton smear The Democrats have discovered the enemy in the ongoing Iraq war. And it is Halliburton. Nothing quite so angers Democrats about the current situation in Iraq than that Halliburton is making money there. Dennis Kucinich, the out-to-lunch leftist who sounds ever more mainstream given the leftward drift of the rest of the Democratic field, wants the United Nations in Iraq so there will be "no more Halliburton sweetheart deals." Bob Graham huffs, "I will not support a dime to protect the profits of Halliburton in Iraq." John Edwards vows "to stop this president from giving billions of...

<p>The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has accused state public housing chief Sharyn Miyashiro of violating conflict-of-interest rules by awarding a $768,000 nonbid construction contract two years ago to a company partly owned by her ex-husband.</p> <p>Michael Liu, HUD assistant secretary, made the accusation in an Aug. 19 letter to Wesley Segawa, chairman of the board of the Housing and Community Development Corp. of Hawai'i.</p>

<p>Oracle dispute, a top aide said Friday.</p> <p>At the same time, state lawmakers scrutinizing the Oracle deal plan to ask the state auditor next week to take a broader look at the controversial practice that also was used to hire companies to revamp the state's $5 million Web portal.</p>