We've mentioned, more than once I believe, that since Karl Rove used his position to force applicants for Federal jobs throughout the govt to pass far-right litmus tests before they were hired (cf Monica Goodling, Regents, and the DOJ) there was a likelihood that the Bush Bureaucracy was going to go right on doing what Rove would want it to do if he hadn't been driven from office. And they have.
One company paid nearly $1 million for destroying seagrass in the Florida Keys marine sanctuary. Another settled a discrimination case after federal investigators found it refused to hire black employees. A third firm was rebuked by the Army for poorly screening the interrogators it hired -- interrogators who later abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
Despite those problems, the three companies have won millions of dollars in contracts under the economic stimulus package.
In the three months since President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus bill, the federal government has awarded more than 800 contracts to repair military buildings, thin forests, and clean up Cold War nuclear plants. Much of the initial $3.8 billion in awards has gone to large companies with long records of working with the government.
At this point (as you can tell) I'm not prepared to blame Obama or his Admin for this. It's going to take time to root these Bushies out. But it would be nice to see some beginning be made. The longer we let them go the more damage they'll do and the fatter the pigs will get.
Let's face it, when Katrina money was found to be going to some poor, black people who had rooked the system, the Right screamed bloody murder and the bureaucracy changed its ways. Everybody would be screaming about this if they weren't well-connected corpo's with lobbyists attached.
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