Progressivefuture has been interviewing an Iraqi veteran all week about the abuses she witnessed firsthand by contractors. Take a look.

Contractors Aren’t Free

 

Sewage in with the Bathwater

 

Witness Weighs in on KBR Water Scandal Reports

 

The Trauma of Silence

 

Contractor Accountability

For something to reach “cult” status, you first need a bunch of fuddy-duddies who just don’t “get” it to make the fans feel like they’re in on a cool joke. In the case of Patrick Swayze, count me as one of the lame ones. I know the guy’s in bad health these days, so as Simon Cowell would say, ”I’m not trying to be rude.”  I’m just doing my part to insure the success of the upcoming Point Break: Indo by forming that necessary population of squares whom cult fans can roll their eyes.  I’m here so you can be condescending and tell me how if I can’t see what it is that makes Swayze cool, then there’s no way you can explain it to me. And you’re right. There is no way you can make me understand how every one of Swayze’s films devolops a cult following: Dirty Dancing and Ghost for the girls, Red Dawn and Road House for the guys (okay, I’ll admit to watching Red Dawn in its endless rotation on HBO during my youth, but I don’t understand why).

Then there’s Point Break, which just so happens to have the other actor whose success is completely unfathonable to me: Keanu Reeves. The only thing I can say for him is that it least this isn’t a period piece, because he is only bearable when playing zoned out, stoners so that no acting is involved.

Which is all just a round about way of explaining why I am dreading the upcoming Point Break 2. And not in a Showgirls kind of way, where you really want to watch, just to be a witness to the train wreck. I don’t understand this in a WTF?, the French really like David Hasselhoff? kind of way that leaves you feeling a little nauseus simply from the knowledge a group of people could actually belong to your species yet possess thinking this foreign to your own. Here’s the summary:

The sequel will pick up where the original film left off, following a Navy soldier who is recruited to infiltrate a gang of criminals in Southeast Asia. That doesn’t sound as much like a sequel as a revamp of the original movie’s plot, especially since the main character is an ex-surfer. It’s unlikely Keanu Reeves would come back for a sequel like this, at least not in a leading part, so expect whoever looks good without a shirt on to be under consideration for the leading role. 

 Here’s more:

“When Billy Dalton, military special ops and star surfer, is
disqualified from the pro-surfing tour, he takes off for the coast of
Bali looking for the perfect wave. While there he’s recruited by a
private security force who are trying to find a gang known as The
Bush Administration, surfing outlaws and modern day pirates who work
like “The Ex-Presidents,” a bank robbing crew from Malibu twenty years ago.”

At least Keanu Reeves and Swayze have been asked to make an appearance. Even I can see that whatever-it-is they bring to Point Break to make it an inexplicable fan fave would be missing, and I can’t see this movie being a success without them.

Then again, I can’t see this movie being a success with them either. Which means it probably has all the makings of a hit.

As you may have heard, the new Republican “rebranding” initiative, has unveiled a new slogan, “The change you deserve.”

 According to the company, “Approximately 18% of the 1381 patients who received Effexor XR capsules in placebo-controlled clinical trials for GAD discontinued treatment due to an adverse experience”

Some common side-effects:

1. Insomnia
2. Nausea
3. Nervousness
4. Sweating
5. Abnormal dreams
6. Suicidal thoughts
7. Agitation
8. Impotence

That’s change the GOP deserves.

.Section 325 of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008 prohibits the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from directing or requiring the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of a Military Department to undertake a public-private competition under OMB Circular No. A-76.

The Free Market means, “Free for me to do what I want when I write the rules.”

The Subhead of Newsweek’s “War on Wounds” promises to answer “why the military is backing the cool new field of regenerative medicine”. The answer may surprise you. It turns out, the reason the government is so interested in this field of research is — get this — because in war, soldiers sometimes end up needing something to be regenerated:

War may be hell, but it has a way of accelerating medical research. World War I brought methods for collecting and preserving blood for transfusions. World War II saw the introduction of penicillin into medical practice. One day, medical historians may remember Iraq and Afghanistan for spurring regenerative medicine, a grab bag of techniques that share the same end—to repair human bodies by helping them regenerate living tissue, rather than relying on artificial parts.

The space program gave us Tang. Whether or not the war improves medicine, we can at least take solace in the fact that it’s gotten the President to give up golf.

Update: Then again, maybe not. Turns out the President may have quit golf due to a knee injury. And played a round after he claims to have made the ultimate sacrifice. But hey, it’s the thought that counts. Retroactively.

“Tigris Woods Golf and Country Club” in the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. Artist rendering courtesy U.S. Army (h/t Kos)

Contractors are raking in billions of U.S. tax dollars in Iraq, but when it comes to giving some of that lovin’ back to the sugar daddy who’s been so good to them, they turn out to be total players:

Congress is finally moving to shut one of the more egregious forms of Iraq war profiteering: defense contractors using offshore shell companies to avoid paying their fair share of payroll taxes. The practice is widespread and Congressional investigators have been dispatched to one of the prime tax refuges, the Cayman Islands, to seek a firsthand estimate of how much the Treasury is being shorted.

You might not find it surprising that the center of the world’s booming private defense market happens to be the Caribbean. Who knew? The AP looks at one company in particular, Combat Support Associates, which although vital to our national security, and privy to top secret information about our strategy for fighting the War on Terror,  houses its headquarters in the Cayman Islands:

Also, company officials maintain the subsidiary is outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, so federal labor rules and anti-discrimination laws don’t apply either.

 

In fact, there’s scant evidence that CSA Ltd. exists - at least physically. There’s no listed office address or phone number in the Cayman Islands. Records show the corporation is registered with Close Brothers, an investment house that serves as its shallow footprint in the Caymans.
   

Close Brothers operates out of a five-story, blue-windowed office building across the street from the docks used by cruise ships visiting this island paradise. There’s no sign of CSA Ltd., however. ”We can’t make any comments in regards to our clients,” Close Brothers director Roger Priaulx said by telephone

The biggest offender? The one who has profited the most from no-bid contracts from the Federal government, KBR, formerly of Dick Cheney’s Haliburton. Somehow, I think Cheney would approve.

Responding to the problem, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Brad Ellsworth has introduced the Fair Share Act of 2008 (S.2775), which would increase accountability and transparency of our tax system by closing a tax loophole to prevent Federal contractors from using foreign affiliates or tax shelters to avoid paying payroll taxes (I have yet to find out where McCain stands on this bill).

Presumptive Dem. nominee Barack Obama has said the whole scheme “turns the idea of patriotism on it’s head.” Here’s Barack Obama’s statement.

Remember when Texas was the “firewall” State in the Democratic Primary where Obama would be stopped, or Hillary would get finished off? That’s turned out to be a bit more like the exploding fuel truck at the end of The Terminator, where every last bit of humanity got scorched away, leaving only her cold, titanium skeleton. The movie, for all intents and purposes, is over, after one last final showdown in a factory. She got a grenade planted in her gut and got blown apart, but we all know there’s one last scare left.

The Democrats had hoped the Clinton sequel would end with the bad cyborg showing a human heart, and willingly lowering herself into the molten vat to save the human race. But she’s choosing for one last cheap thrill, dragging her torsoe after us with her one good arm. This isn’t  C2. The only way this movie ends is by crushing her beneath a hydraulic press.

My suggestion: don’t leave her arm lying around to bring about the rise of the political machines.