Angry Boeing Supporters Target McCain
By Matthew Daly
The Associated Press
Saturday 08 March 2008

Angry Boeing supporters are vowing revenge against Republican presidential candidate John McCain over Chicago-based Boeing's loss of a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract to the parent company of European plane maker Airbus.
There are other targets for their ire - the Air Force, the defense secretary and even the entire Bush administration.
But Boeing supporters in Congress are directing their wrath at McCain, the Arizona senator and nominee in waiting, for scuttling an earlier deal that would have let Boeing build the next generation of Air Force refueling tankers. Boeing now will miss out on a deal that it says would have supported 44,000 new and existing jobs at the company and suppliers in 40 states.
"I hope the voters of this state remember what John McCain has done to them and their jobs," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., whose state would have been home to the tanker program and gained about 9,000 jobs.
"Having made sure that Iraq gets new schools, roads, bridges and dams that we deny America, now we are making sure that France gets the jobs that Americans used to have," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill. "We are sending the jobs overseas, all because John McCain demanded it."
The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. and its U.S. partner, Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman, won a competition with Boeing Feb. 29 to build the refueling planes in one of the biggest Pentagon contracts in decades. The unexpected decision has sparked outrage from union halls to the halls of Congress over the impact on U.S. jobs, prestige and national security. EADS and Northrop say about 60 percent of their tanker will be built in the U.S.
McCain said he is keeping an open mind on the contract, but in the past he has boasted about his role in blocking an earlier version of the tanker deal that gave the contract to Boeing. The deal was killed in 2004 after a former Boeing executive improperly recruited an Air Force official while she was still overseeing contracts involving prospective Boeing deals. The former Air Force official, Darleen Druyun, and a top Boeing executive both served time in prison, and the scandal led to the departure of Boeing's chief executive and several top Air Force officials.
McCain has run ads touting his role in fighting "pork" such as the tanker project and cited the deal in a recent GOP debate.
"I saved the taxpayers $6 billion in a bogus tanker deal," he said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., echoing the thoughts of many congressional Democrats, sees McCain's role in a less positive light. She said the earlier tanker deal was "on course for Boeing" before McCain started railing against it.
"I mean, the thought was that it would be a domestic supplier for it," Pelosi told reporters. "Senator McCain intervened, and now we have a situation where the contract may be - this work may be outsourced."
Even Boeing's Republican supporters are critical of McCain.
"John McCain will be the nominee and I will support him, but if John McCain believes that Airbus or EADS is the company for our Air Force tanker program he's flat-out wrong - and I'll tell him that to his face," said Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash.
Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican whose district includes a Boeing plant that could have gained hundreds of new jobs from the tanker program, said McCain's role in killing the earlier deal is likely to become an election issue. Both of the leading Democratic candidates for president, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have criticized the Air Force decision.
"I think we absolutely will hear more about it," Tiahrt said. "We'll hear it mostly from the Democrats and they have every right to be concerned."
McCain called such criticism off base.
"In all due respect to the Washington delegation, they vigorously defended the process before - which turned out to be corrupt - which would have cost the taxpayers more than $6 billion and ended up with people in federal prison," he said. "I'm the one that fought against that ... for years and brought down a corrupt contract."
Keith Ashdown, with the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Boeing executives who broke the law were to blame for the demise of the tanker contract - not McCain.
"This was theirs from day one," he said. "This idea that any lawmaker is to blame is a joke."
Still, Todd Donovan, a political science professor at Western Washington University, said McCain's opposition to Boeing could hurt him with voters in Washington and other states affected by the tanker program. Boeing would have performed much of the work in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, Kan., and used Pratt & Whitney engines built in Connecticut. Significant work also was slated for Texas.
"If he can be painted as somehow being associated with job losses ... it could hurt him on the margins," Donovan said.
McCain's role in the tanker deal did not bother Alabama politicians, including Republican Gov. Bob Riley, who endorsed McCain three days after the Air Force contract was announced. The EADS-Northrop tanker, based on the Airbus A330, will be built in Mobile, Ala., where it will produce 2,000 new jobs, and support 25,000 jobs at suppliers nationwide.
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Associated Press writers Libby Quaid and Sam Hananel contributed to this story.

Blog Comments sent to me today. I post for your information. -GFS
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From: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/both-clinton-and-obama-foolish.php
Both Clinton and Obama foolishly play politics with the KC-x Tanker deal

By - March 4, 2008, 11:26AM
I found the following statements in this LA Times article disturbing:
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois said Monday that it was hard for him to
believe "that having an American company that has been a traditional
source of aeronautic excellence would not have done this job."

Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York said she was "deeply concerned about
the Bush administration's decision to outsource the production of
refueling tankers for the American military."
I would be supremely disappointed in both candidates, one of which I strongly support, if they turn to one of the oldest plays in the Republican handbook and start demonizing foreign entities and their products in a "protectionism" shtick.

Both of them are only undercutting their own integrity and their future battle against John McCain. McCain spearheaded an investigation in the early years of the KC-x Boeing program which revealed serious fraud and problems with the next generation tanker, so much so that one person ended up behind bars and the contract was recompeted.

It's not outsourcing when the government choses the superior product for it's soldiers. That is yet another point that McCain will absolutely slam the Democratic nominee for, and it's on an issue where he is both expertly knowledgeable and intimately familiar with. If BO or HC make this "buy the lower-quality American product for the soldiers" argument, not only will they be wrong and look naive (and illustrate their total lack of knowledge of the tanker deal), but McCain will use it as one more shot in a full broadside on the National Security issue.

I understand the economy needs help, but providing that help at the expense of the military is not the answer. By all accounts (such as the referenced 'defense policy analyst' identified at the end of the LA Times article) the Northrop Grumman/EADS product was far superior and cheaper. 20% of the Boeing plane was going to be assembled overseas as well and the net American job difference was vastly overstated by Boeing for exactly this reason.

The Democratic nominee will undoubtedly be strongly tempted to attack McCain on his issue, given the juicy combination of his unique involvement with the deal and an economy on the downslope. But as long as the award process was conducted properly and fairly, this issue is an absolute landmine for the Democratic nominee.

The only way to approach this issue would be to find some serious dirt on the amount of sway the congressional lobbyist groups had. They certainly hugely influenced the deal, as they always have. But doing so would be gray area for the Dem nominee, as they'd be walking into territory where McCain is an established expert.
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From http://www.myopenforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27795
US anger over loss of $40bn air force order to Europe

Andrew Clark and Richard Wray
The Guardian,

The US military's decision to award a $40bn (£20bn) contract to build in-flight refuelling aircraft to the European defence company EADS, instead of the current supplier Boeing, has prompted protectionist outrage in the US, with lawmakers accusing the Pentagon of selling out local jobs.

The contract, with EADS and its US partner Northrop Grumman, for a fleet of up to 179 planes based on the Airbus A330, will safeguard 7,400 jobs at Airbus's factory in Flintshire, north Wales, where the tanker's wings will be made.

Following news of its success over the weekend, bosses at the plant in Broughton said more jobs could be created. The deal also helps Airbus's other UK site at Filton, near Bristol.

American politicians are furious at the US air force's decision to award the contract to EADS instead of Boeing, until now the US military's sole supplier of tankers. The US firm had been front-runner, despite a $23.5bn deal it won in 2002 for 100 planes collapsing amid allegations of fraud that resulted in prison terms for an ex-air force weapons buyer and Boeing's former chief financial officer.

Sam Brownback, a Republican senator and former presidential candidate, said: "It's stunning to me that we would outsource the production of these planes to Europe instead of building them in America. I'll be calling on the Pentagon for a full debriefing and expect that there will be a protest of the award by Boeing."

Politicians on Boeing's home ground in Seattle were particularly vociferous. Washington state congressional delegates said: "This is a blow to the American aerospace industry, American workers, and America's men and women in uniform."

Boeing is expected to decide whether to appeal against the decision after it has received a "debriefing" from the US military on why its planes were rejected. Boeing's design was based on its 767 aircraft.

The contract is part of the US air force's plans to replace its fleet of more than 500 KC-135 in-flight refuelling aircraft, which date from the 1950s and are used to extend the range of its planes. The first of the new KC-45 planes produced by EADS are due to go into service in 2013. In total, analysts estimate the USAF's replacement of its old tankers could be worth $100bn. Including maintenance and other follow-on orders the whole programme could become the second largest US military aircraft procurement exercise after the F-35 fighter.

EADS won the first of an expected three in-flight refuelling aircraft orders with Northrop Grumman, the Pentagon's third-largest supplier after Lockheed Martin and Boeing. In an attempt to calm American fears about the possible impact on the US defence industry of a European company becoming involved, the two companies plan an assembly plant in Mobile, Alabama. The parts themselves will, however, be produced in Europe.

Richard Shelby, an Alabama senator, described the European offering as "by far the most superior platform in design, fuel efficiency and overall capability".

Despite its success in winning the order, Airbus will continue its cost-cutting plans, Thomas Enders, chief executive, said in an interview with the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel published today. The company, which is battling a weak dollar, launched a savings programme called Power8 a year ago which involves 10,000 job cuts by 2010. Some jobs are expected to go at the Airbus site near Bristol.

Four years ago Congress killed plans to spend $23.5bn on 100 Boeing tankers after an investigation by the Republican senator John McCain, now the front-running nominee for the US presidential race. Darleen Druyun was jailed for negotiating a position with Boeing while still working as an air force procurement officer. The man who gave her the job, Boeing's finance chief Michael Sears, was also jailed.

ATF Whistleblower Alleges Backlash

By Dan Eggen

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Edgar A. Domenech says he thought Justice Department officials would welcome information about mismanagement at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Instead, the 23-year ATF veteran says, Justice officials ignored his complaints and later retaliated against him by demoting him, denying him a bonus and attempting to give him a poor job review.

"I realized I was committing career suicide at the time, but I felt I had a moral obligation as the deputy director to protect the agency and the men and women of the agency," Domenech said in an interview yesterday. "In retrospect, I was naive to believe that the department would welcome my honesty."

Domenech filed a 13-page complaint yesterday with the Office of Special Counsel, saying that ATF and the Justice Department punished him for raising questions about the performance of former ATF director Carl J. Truscott, who resigned in August 2006 while under investigation for alleged financial mismanagement.

Domenech, who was second-in-command at ATF for four years, said his complaints about Truscott beginning in late 2005 were ignored or played down by aides to then-Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales because Truscott had ties to the White House.

Truscott headed President Bush's Secret Service detail before taking over ATF.

Spokesmen for ATF and the Justice Department declined to comment on Domenech's allegations. The ATF spokesmen said they had not seen the complaint and could not discuss personnel issues.

An October 2006 report by the Justice Department's inspector general largely confirmed complaints by Domenech and other ATF senior executives. It determined that Truscott had engaged in a wide-ranging pattern of questionable expenditures on a new ATF headquarters, personal security and other items. The report also said that Truscott improperly forced employees to help his nephew prepare a high school video project and required female employees to serve lunch to guests.

In the complaint, Domenech's Washington attorney, Debra S. Katz, outlined actions by the Justice Department and ATF that she alleged are violations of the Whistleblower Protection Act.

Domenech said ATF's acting director, Michael J. Sullivan, and other officials have taken actions meant to punish him for raising questions about Truscott. The moves include transferring him out of headquarters and excluding him from meetings and duties that usually would be his responsibility.

He also alleged that, after years of outstanding job reviews and bonuses, he was given an average review in 2007, which was changed only after he complained. Because of the earlier review, however, he was denied a customary bonus, he said.

Domenech, who now heads ATF's Washington field office, drew comparisons between his case and the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in 2006. The federal prosecutors were told that they were being removed only to make room for new people. Sullivan gave Domenech a similar explanation when he demoted him, Domenech said.

Justice officials repeatedly played down Truscott's problems as head of ATF, and Sullivan even invited the former director to take part in ATF's annual award ceremony in August 2007, Domenech said.

Domenech first raised complaints about Truscott's performance in December 2005 with William Mercer, then principal associate deputy attorney general, who later would be a pivotal figure in the controversy over the dismissal of the federal prosecutors.

Mercer and another official said Truscott "appeared to be in over his head, but since his name came directly from the White House, there was little that could be done about the situation," according to the complaint. Several months later, Domenech said, Mercer dismissed complaints about Truscott as coming from "disgruntled career staff."

After Truscott left, Domenech reversed a decision by Truscott to include an engraved quotation from Bush at the entrance to the new ATF headquarters in Washington.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/03/AR2008030302684.html?nav=rss_politics

Dear ************

Many of the nation's inspectors general (IGs) lack the resources they need to function as independent government watchdogs, according to a new report released by POGO last Friday. POGO sent a questionnaire to all 64 statutory IG offices, and discovered that many IGs are being forced to operate with minimal funding and staffing, a lack of in-house legal counsels, limited control over their own websites, and competition from similar investigative units within their agencies. As POGO points out in the report, "calling someone who lacks independence of agency leadership an 'Inspector General' not only confuses the press and public, but can also create pitfalls for potential whistleblowers."

Click here to read POGO's report, which has been covered in the Washington Post and Government Executive. You can also learn more by reading POGO's press alert and blog post.

After a motion was filed on behalf of POGO, a California judge decided on Friday to overturn an earlier decision to shut down Wikileaks, an anti-corruption website where whistleblowers can anonymously upload documents. The judge originally ordered the site to be taken offline after a Swiss bank, Julius Baer Group, complained that a former employee was uploading confidential records that allegedly contained evidence of the bank's tax evasion and offshore dealings. Instead of ordering Wikileaks to remove these individual documents, the judge ordered that the entire site must be shut down. The motion filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on behalf of POGO argued that the judge's decision violated the public's First Amendment right to "receive information and ideas." Similar motions were filed by Public Citizen, the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, and the Harvard Law School's Citizen Media Law Project.Click here to read the motion filed on behalf of POGO, which was covered in the New York Times, or click here to read about the judge's most recent decision. You can also learn more by checking out POGO's blog. POGO made publicly available for the first time last week a report by the Department of Transportation IG showing that a lack of oversight by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and airplane manufacturers has resulted in the installation of substandard parts on both civilian and military aircraft. The Transportation Department IG was forced to disclose the report after POGO made it available on its website. The IG's audit led to a number of troubling findings, including the discovery that many aircraft parts are being manufactured overseas with little oversight, and that in each of the last 4 years, the FAA has inspected an average of only 1 percent of major aircraft suppliers.

Click here to read the IG report, or click here to read POGO's press alert. Also, be sure to check out the Washington Post and CNN for their coverage of the report.

Warm regards,

Danielle Brian
Executive Director

Project On Government Oversight

Judge Reverses His Order

Disabling Wikileaks Web Site

The New York Times

By JONATHAN D. GLATER

March 1, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Friday withdrew his earlier order disabling a Web site that allows the anonymous posting of documents to discourage unethical behavior in governments and corporations.

On Feb. 15, the judge, Jeffrey S. White of Federal District Court in San Francisco, ordered the American address of the site, Wikileaks.org, to be disabled at the request of Bank Julius Baer & Company, a Swiss banking company, and its Cayman Islands subsidiary. They charged that Wikileaks had posted confidential, personally identifiable account information on some of the bank’s customers.

The judge’s action drew criticism — and court filings — from numerous organizations concerned that the order violated the First Amendment protection of free speech. Because Wikileaks operates sites, like Wikileaks.cx, in other countries, the documents were and are still widely available, both in the United States and elsewhere.

In reversing himself at a hearing here on Friday, Judge White acknowledged that the bank’s request posed serious First Amendment questions and might constitute unjustified prior restraint. He also appeared visibly frustrated that technology might have outrun the law and that, as a result, the court might not be able to rein in information once it had been disclosed online.

“We live in an age,” Judge White said, “when people can do some good things and people can do some terrible things without accountability necessarily in a court of law.”

Critics of Judge White’s previous order had said one problem was its breadth: It obstructed access to documents beyond those that the bank said contained confidential information. But he noted that as a practical matter, no ruling might achieve what the bank wanted.

Garret D. Murai, a lawyer for Dynadot, the registrar that provided the Wikileaks domain name, said after the hearing that the Wikileaks.org domain name would probably be re-enabled within an hour of the judge’s issuing a written order outlining his decision. By Friday evening, the site was apparently working again.

William J. Briggs II, a lawyer representing the bank, said the decision “abdicated federal judicial authority to the Internet.”

“The court is telling you, you can’t rein this in,” he added, “and I think that’s a sad commentary.”

More than a dozen lawyers at the hearing represented organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and various media companies. A striking absence throughout the proceeding was of anyone claiming to represent Wikileaks.

A lawyer appeared in court representing the owner of the domain name Wikileaks.org, John Shipton, an Australian living in Kenya. But the lawyer emphasized that he did not speak for the site, and no other lawyer claimed to speak for it.

Lawyers and the judge had difficulty grappling with the nature of Wikileaks and questioned whether it could be treated like a corporation or other, more traditional legal entity that could be brought into court.

Judge White did not go so far as to decide that the federal courts had no jurisdiction over the case at all, as argued by Public Citizen and the California First Amendment Coalition. He said he hoped that lawyers for the plaintiffs would address that question in later proceedings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/us/01wiki.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=technology&adxnnlx=1204550445-XbFDfX6VcJX0QuwjkRo1UA&oref=slogin