T-Room

The Best in Alt News

August 30, 2011

$30 billion stolen by US military contractors

Wartime Contracting Commission warns of huge risk from unsustainable projects

“ARLINGTON, VA, June 3, 2011 – U.S.-funded projects that the Iraqi and Afghan governments can’t operate or pay for on their own threaten to create billions of dollars of new waste of American taxpayers’ money, according to a special report released today by the federal Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The report notes that “Potential waste from unsustainable projects exceeds $11 billion for just one program in Afghanistan, facilities construction for the national security forces.” The report points to other examples like a large power plant the Afghan government can’t afford to operate and an Iraqi water-treatment plant that is shut down much of the time and produces murky water when it does run.

Sustainability is a serious concern, the report says, because the U.S. military will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, and the drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan begins in July. Yet many of the programs and projects carried out under federal contracts in the countries lack plans for staffing, technical support, and funding for the long term.

Read the rest of release by clicking on the headline and look for the report on Wednesday at the same location.

August 5, 2011

EXCLUSIVE: Fired Army Whistleblower Receives $970K for Exposing Halliburton No-Bid Contract in Iraq

From DemocracyNow!

“Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse, the former chief oversight official of contracts at the Army Corps of Engineers, has reached a $970,000 settlement six years after she was demoted for publicly criticizing a multi-billion-dollar, no-bid contract to Halliburton—the company formerly headed by then-Vice President Dick Cheney. Greenhouse had accused the Pentagon of unfairly awarding the contract to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root. Testifying before Congress in June 2005, she called the contract the worst case of government abuse she had ever witnessed in her 20-year career. Just two months after that testimony, Greenhouse was demoted at the Pentagon, ostensibly for “poor performance…”

Watch more interviews conducted by Amy Goodman at DemocracyNow!

Learn more about the National Whistleblower Center by clicking HERE.

April 23, 2011

One Year Later the Largest Man-made Environmental Disaster in American History Continues to Wreak Havoc

Letter to the Ruling Class

You control our world. You’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you. You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed. We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence. You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions. You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living. You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame. We are hit… we are bleeding… but we ain’t got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution!

Sincerely,

The Serfs.

By Helen Tansey

April 20, 2011 marked the one-year anniversary of the tragic Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster. Following is snapshot of what we’ve learned over the last 12 months since the spill. It’s not good. Instead, it’s embarrassingly horrific and it appears our Gulf Coast family is carrying this heavy burden alone.

One year later we learn from the Center for Biological Diversity some disturbing facts when they combed through “government figures, news reports and scientific articles. To provide a more accurate estimate of the death toll, we used multiplication factors identified by leading scientists that estimate how many more animals are killed than are actually observed or collected.” The results of their study are highlighted in “A Deadly Toll: The Gulf Oil Spill and the Unfolding Wildlife Disaster which states – [Read more…]

March 18, 2011

EXCLUSIVE! – BP Oil Spill – Mother of Six Walking To Washington – Cherri Foytlin Starts A Movement

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_07y1LB3UE

You go, girl!

It is way past time we American’s hold not only the government BUT the corporatocracy accountable for the ongoing assault on our precious natural resources, our psyche and our pocketbooks. Remind me when exactly our republic turned into a democracy which is now a full blown fascist form of rule. Next step – oligarchy. Look it up. Learn for yourself like many of us have bothered to do and then tell me this is the structure you want to raise your families in. I’ll be waiting.

Cherri, we will be joining in on the Road to Washington.

Follow Cherri on her journey by clicking HERE

 

March 13, 2011

The Road to Washington – We hold the power to be the change that is needed to find compassion within our communities

Louisiana resident Cherri Foytlin, mother to six children and wife to displaced Deepwater oil rig worker Forest Foytlin, has had enough.  As her family’s livelihood is increasingly threatened by financial deprivation, Ms. Foytlin has run out of time.

Beginning March 13th, 2011, Ms. Foytlin will embark on a journey that she hopes will forever turn the tide of destruction left in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Ms. Foytlin will walk 1,243 miles from New Orleans to Washington, D.C. En route she hopes to garner enough support to captivate the nation with her message of change.

Ms. Foytlin has been fighting for the welfare of the families in the Gulf since the spill first began. She has cried and pleaded for president Obama to restore the people’s faith in the government by demonstrating accountability, transparency, and support towards residents affected by the oil spill. Prompted by desperation, but drive by hope, this walk represents her final attempt to reach the administration.

“This is a pilgrimage of love for the people of the Gulf. I am taking their concerns about health, the economy, the environment and the claims process to the President of the United States. I asked him to come down at the height of the spill so he could meet the people who were truly impacted. My request fell on deaf ears, but we will not be ignored.  My walk is a universal and non-partisan event; it is about preserving our civil rights as a nation, and our human rights as a global community” [Read more…]

November 1, 2010

VOTE ALL INCUMBENTS OUT OF OFFICE! ALL OF THEM!

VOTE THEM ALL OUT! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!!!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZk8ronces

Forty-seven years ago, President John F. Kennedy was assisinated by a cowardly cabal of thugs in Dallas, Texas. This single act set America on an bumpy roller-coaster trip that has witnessed countless number of “insider” murders, thousands of innocent men, women and children slaughtered for no other reason than greed in their homelands, genocide, attacks on our homeland, the withering dollar, loss of our homes and so much more. [Read more…]

July 2, 2010

National Geographic: Oil gusher threatens Native Indian "Water" Village Way of Life

From NG – “The town of Grand Bayou, Louisiana, has no streets and no cars, just water and boats. And now the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico threatens the very existence of the Atakapa-Ishak Indians who live there. “We’re facing the potential for cultural genocide,” says one tribe member.”

© 2010 National Geographic; videographer and field producer: Fritz Faerber

Learning how entire cultures of people may very well be wiped out by this BP/Transocean/Halliburton Gulf Gusher is heartbreaking. This catastrophy is hand made which means it was entirely preventable. To compare it to Katrina is a mistake, b/c on scale, this man made disaster is so much bigger and more threatening to generations and generations of the people.