‘This is cronyism, this is waste, fraud and abuse’

June 10, 2008

The good news is, Bush’s Justice Department offers grants to community programs to address juvenile crime nationwide. The bad news is, Bush’s Justice Department seems to award the grants based on political connections, not merit.

There’s a program in San Diego, for example, that was ranked #2 by the DoJ in its category of prevention and intervention. It didn’t get any funding. But the program that was ranked #47 won a generous grant — because it had connections. Murray Waas and ABC News have the story:

A senior Justice Department official says a $500,000 federal grant to the World Golf Foundation is an appropriate use of money designed to deal with juvenile crime in America.

“We need something really attractive to engage the gangs and the street kids, golf is the hook,” said J. Robert Flores, the administrator of the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

The Justice Department, in a decision by Flores, gave the money to the World Golf Foundation’s First Tee program, even though Justice Department staffers had rated the program 47th on a list of 104 applicants. The allegations were first reported earlier this year by the trade journal Youth Today.

Wouldn’t you know it, the honorary chairman of the First Tee program is former President George Bush.

Scott Peterson, who worked in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, said grants were awarded based more on politics than merit. “This is cronyism, this is waste, fraud and abuse,” Peterson told ABC News, adding, “It’s a lot of our taxpayer money that’s supposed to go for some of our most vulnerable children.”

Wait, it gets worse.

Current and former Justice Department employees allege that Flores ignored the staff rankings in favor of programs that had political, social or religious connections to the Bush White House. […]

His former employee, Scott Peterson, said Flores holds daily prayer sessions in the Justice Department office and frowns on giving grant money to organizations that provide sex education or condoms to teenagers.

Instead, said Peterson, Flores favors programs that promote sexual abstinence.

A Washington, D.C. program, Best Friends, that promotes abstinences was awarded $1.1 million by Flores even though it ranked 53rd on a list of 104 applicants.

Best Friends is run by Elayne Bennett, the wife of Bill Bennett, a former Republican cabinet member and now political commentator.

Earl Dunlap, who runs a training program for the National Partnership for Juvenile Services, told ABC, “What Flores did in this situation is he just stomped on the heads of kids who are very much at risk and in trouble in this country…. He determined what the rules were gonna be and who was gonna play and who was gonna be welcome in his club. And everybody else could take a hike.”

What’s striking, in a way, is how almost routine stories like this have become over the last few years. We start to think of corruption in the federal government as the norm. We hear that Bush administration agencies tasked with distributing grants (made up of our tax dollars) are basing decisions on ideology and politics instead of merit, and think, “Well, sure. Of course they are.”

An Obama administration sure would have a lot of clean-up work to do, wouldn’t it?

Update: Youth Today, which broke the story in Decemeber, has some additional insights on this that are well worth checking out. Take a look: part one and part two.

cruckin’ flooks

  • “A Washington, D.C. program, Best Friends, that promotes abstinences was awarded $1.1 million by Flores even though it ranked 53rd on a list of 104 applicants.”

    “Best Friends is run by Elayne Bennett, the wife of Bill Bennett, a former Republican cabinet member and now political commentator.”

    Too bad Mrs Bennett couldn’t promote “abstinences” – like stopping reckless gambling – in her own husband.

  • An Obama administration sure would have a lot of clean-up work to do, wouldn’t it?

    Yes it will. And we of the Left need to work VERY hard to make sure that this November is a total blowout, otherwise we’ll be stuck trying to work out compromise deals with a slew of scumbags in order to pass anything. With his stunning list of corrupt actions, Bush has handed us the means to blow them out, we need to take full advantage of that.

  • phoebes in santa fe said: “Best Friends is run by Elayne Bennett, the wife of Bill Bennett, a former Republican cabinet member and now political commentator.”

    LOL. Abstinences.

    I suspect their problem was that Best Friends too often became BFFs.

  • An Obama administration sure would have a lot of clean-up work to do, wouldn’t it?

    This is why I keep harping on being certain to get a VP candidate who will be a credible Presidential candidate in 2016. It took 4 Roosevelt Administrations (including the first Truman Administration) to clean up 40 years of Republican shitheadedness back then, and it will take at least that long to clean out the Augean Stables of the past 40 years of these halfwitted scum and their voodoo politics.

  • I suspect their problem was that Best Friends too often became BFFs.

    Or just friends with benefits!

  • This, from the Best Friends Foundation start page:

    …provides a scientifically researched and developmentally sound curriculum designed for middle and high school students

    I’ve a bit more than a hunch that this “curriculum” is the K-12 Curriculum that Bennett’s been peddling. It’s really not that bad of a package, but it’s also an eerie coincidence (or maybe not) that the “national programs” listed on the foundation’s website look a lot like the public school districts that have purchased the K-12 curriculum program for use in their buildings.

    Is it just me—or does it seem a bit odd that the taxpayers are putting money into the Bennetts’ pockets TWICE—for the same friggin’ thing?

  • Shameless political rewards and punishments have been elevated to a blatancy not usually seen. That has been the message, however. Reward your friends, and punish, punish, punish your enemies and let everyone see you’re doing it. It’s a management style many of us are familiar with. Loyalty-uber-alles.

    It will take at least two years for an Obama administration to root out some of the operatives that Bushco have planted throughout the federal government, and much longer to get rid of the parasitic contractors hired to give the illusion the Rethugs were actually shrinking the size of the federal bureaucracy. There are probably more gravy trains to Rethug cronies than sand grains on a mile of beach – without even considering the military-industrial-intelligence-oil complex. The pile of manure is definitely larger than anyone imagines, and with expected endless attacks by a suddenly vigilent MSM on an Obama administration, how effective clean-up and clean-out efforts will be is decidedly questionable.

  • It’s funny, when I think of street gangs and golf, I don’t think of people spending warm summer days walking in bucolic settings, I think of

    FRAMINGHAM — The arrests of six reputed members of a Kendall Street gang this week after a vicious attack on three men downtown is not the first time members of the gang have been in trouble with the law.

    […]

    The latest incident attributed to the gang was the attack last Sunday by six teen members on three men.

    The KST members allegedly beat the three men with baseball bats, a tire iron and a golf club. One victim was left with smashed teeth and a ripped lip, and all three victims were sent to the hospital.

  • The worst part of this story is that it’s no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention.

    We MUST elect Barack Obama on November 4!

  • A lot of different topics here:

    First, the ‘golf’ question. There are plenty of specifics to get angry about, but let’s not ‘go Proxmire/McCain’ on the idea itself. (Both Senators loved to pick out specific programs that they could use to ridicuke government spending — and both the Republican and Democrat frequently criticized inherently good ideas that could be made to sound bad. I can even remember when a lot of liberal Democrats criticized the space program as wasteful — but satellite weather tracking, GPSs, and television broadcasting have each repaid far more — in lives saved, property damage averted, etc. — than the whole space prpgram has cost.)

    I can no more criticize the idea itself than I could have protested Mayor Dinkins — NYC’s first and, so far, only black mayor — for pushing a similar program involving tennis in the ‘inner cities.’ The fact os that sports — of any kind — like entertainment, has always been one route ‘out of the ghetto’ for people who don’t have the financial or intellectual resources to take the longer but surer ‘education’ route.

    (I hope no one is going to argue that either sport is only for ‘rich white men.’ That used to be true, but it has changed, and the Williams Sisters and Tiger are both good role models.)

    On the other hand, ‘abstinence education’ was, is, and will remain a religiously based absurdity that not only doesn’t achieve its stated goals, but actually exacerbates the problems it was designed to solve. Just this week the WaPo had yet another article showing its ineffectiveness
    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/04/AR2008060401735.html
    (h/t Ed Brayton at ‘Dispatches…’)

    I am, btw, unsure if McCain has taken any position on ‘abstinence-only’ — given him he’s probably been on both sides. If he has supported it, this might be a good place for Obama to hit him — since it is yet another example of Republicans selling a program on its name, and ignoring the question of whether it actually works.

  • And Tom, I may be being pedantic here — but I have to continue to criticize your continuous tossing out of statements that simply don’t match the facts — and it is as bad when we do it as when a Malkin, a Limbaugh, or the Schlussel does it. In fact it is worse, because we don’t need these sort of arguments. Facts do have a liberal bias. We can win the arguments with them. And every time we go overboard, we give the Republicans a chance to use our exaggerations to dismiss the very real points we are making.

    So, no Tom, it did not take “4 Roosevelt Administrations (including the first Truman Administration) to clean up 40 years of Republican shitheadedness back then.” Or rather, it did — but only because FDR remade the Democrats into the progressive party. Before him, the Democrats were basically the party of the status quo — and of the racist South (which lasted until the early 60s).

    The President who first changed America’s attitude towards the capability and need for governmental intervention against ‘Capitalists Gone Wild’ was TR, not FDR, and he was supported and pushed by Progressive Republicans and Independents like Norris and the LaFollettes who had originally been Republicans. There was plenty of “Republican shitheadedness” then, but there were as many brown stains on Democrats’ craniums as well. (And Wilson, who took the idea further was both ‘Progressive’ and racist — in a far more scary way than TR was.)

  • Now wait a minute…. didn’t President Bush supposed GIVE UP golf because it sent the wrong message to the mothers of our men and women serving in Iraq?

    Playing golf = bad.

    So why are we spending taxpayer money to get at-risk youth to play golf?

  • I am sure the at risk youth are just dying to get onto the links…

    John McCain: Your retirement is too secure as it is, don’t you think?
    John McCain: Can’t poor sick children just get a job already?
    John McCain supporting our troops by keeping them uneducated.
    John McCain: Here’s to you, OH, PA, MI!

  • Steve,

    Please amend your post to give credit much higher up to Youth Today, which broke these allegations months ago and has been featuring this story and related ones on the home page of its website, http://www.youthtoday.org. Please also hyperlink the Youth Today reference (www.youthtoday.org). Thank you.

  • We’re paying money to get kids to play golf because golf clubs and courses in this country are going bankrupt. They are losing money becuse middle class people are cutting out frivilous spending. So this is another indirect bail out to big businesses. Do you think these kids are going to be able to afford greens fees later in life or that golf clubs will let them in? Maybe we will have a lot of “public” courses out there soon. The gov’t already counts the ponds on golf courses as added wetlands…soon they will be national parks (bought at a premium price).

    Bill Bennet’s wife’s abstinence is probably what made his turn to gambling. (snark/)

  • (I hope no one is going to argue that either sport is only for ‘rich white men.’ That used to be true, but it has changed, and the Williams Sisters and Tiger are both good role models.)

    OK, I’ll bite. Golf is heavily dominated by rich, white men. I doubt you could manipulate the statistics enough to “prove” otherwise, but I’d fun to see you try. I’ll concede that this domination may be less than it once once, but it is still very strong

  • Hopeful:
    Your comment may be the silliest to come from ‘our side’ today — at least it sets a high standard.

    First, many golf clubs are city-owned, or owned by the members. There is no sinister Golf Course Trust manipulating Bush.

    But, much more importantly, I am going to repeat a comment you made, and I want you to think about it, think about the racial — I was going to say ‘racist’ but that’s a charge I hate to throw around unjustifiably — implications in it. (Never mind that it is factually inaccurate, and that there are many blacks who play golf regularly — and yes, many of them started ‘in the ghetto.’)

    Did you really mean to say
    “Do you think these kids are going to be able to afford greens fees later in life or that golf clubs will let them in.”

    (Btw, this is the fourth — and supposedly last — day of a heat wave in NYC that has kept the ‘heat index’ above 105. I expect that a few cooler days and I’ll be back to being a “Sweet Old Boy” instead of the initials. And yes, I adapted the line from one of Robert Benchley’s — and why is he forgotten.)

  • Yes, MLE. And politics has been dominated by ‘rich white men’ and it would be ridiculous to support a Black candidate because no American Party dominated by ‘rich white men’ wouyld ever nominate a black. And the legal profession is so strongly a collection of rich white men that nobody would expect a black attorney to make it to the Supreme Court — especially not a disturber of the status quo like Thurgood Marshall.

    For that matter, baseball owners have always been predominantly ‘rich white men’ or even worse, corporations. And all of them had farm teams located in the racist South. Which explains why baseball and the other sports are still segregated, right?

    For that matter — yes, this is nasty, but, I hope, deserved — the one last barrier to integration was and ‘always will be’ the cry “Would you want your sister to marry one?” In fact, the prejudice against ‘miscegenation’ is also strong in the black community, so if there was to be a black candidate, it wouyldn’t be someone of ‘mixed heritage.’

    Will someone contact the 3rd Doctor, tell him to stick you in the TARDIS and drop you off in this century — and get you to look around.

  • Just another crony in a long line of disaster government. Dumptrucks full of incompetents dumped in every government agency to ensure the agency won’t work right and only ensures administration whims will be carried out. It is so wide spread that correcting the situation spreads the opposition so thin involving all their time and resources that for the most part they can get away with most anything (paintings, government trips, bonuses, grants to friends etc.) because there just isn’t enough manpower to deal with it all.

    We’ll be 50 yrs getting rid of all the Regency and Liberty U grads that were part of the bargain to get Christian right support for Bush. Make the corruption overwhelming and everywhere and leave incompetents to make the decisions, while we rob the coffers …that’s disaster government.

  • Obama’s most important cabinet appointment if he wins will be AG. It’s going to take a Heracles diverting a river to clean out the DoJ.

  • Prup, I’m afraid you misunderstand: I am not describing the world as I think it should be, but only as it is. The “First Tee” program is already well-funded by major golf organizations and sponsors and appears an unlikely candidate for thin federal funds. Moreover, it appears calculated — despite a veil to suggest otherwise — to gin up general (youth) interest in golf, and not crime prevention or intervention. Whereas, higher ranked and more tailored candidate programs did not receive funding. This has all the hallmarks of a cronyism, pork, and fraud, with the benefits inuring to the image and PR value of (largely) a bunch of rich, white men (and yes, corporations).

    If golf communities really wanted to help in the areas, they would donate directly to programs like those passed over. But of course, that is not their goal.

  • Golf courses take up too much space, are usually located on the outskirts of the city(where there is more room) and usually heavily guarded. It is mildly physically competitive, takes a long time to play involving a long attention span and generally isn’t a place where gangs or groups go to play. Seems to me there would be a number of better ways to spend grant money to help juveniles deal with delinquency. But being that everything the republicans touch usually turns into a nightmare the rule of thumb is take anything involving them and large sums of money with a large grain of salt and plenty of oversight.

    Like it or not racism has been embedded in this country. There is little “generational” wealth among blacks. Nearly everything in this country’s foundation was started by white people (who in most cases would take it away from non-whites in our earlier days) Agreed, we now have black participants in most areas but not as founders. No black banks, but plenty of black bankers so to speak. I don’t refer to Obama as a black man but asw an American. He represents Americans not special interest groups like ” black people”. Republicans will try to frame him as the black man running for office not an American citizen who happens to be black.

    Our thinking on the matter is embedded also. When a white man is running for office he’s never referred to as the “white” man but not so with a black (or any other color) man. Watch republicans frame it as a non-issue issue. The “first” black man to be president is not the reason he is president. His “blackness” has nothing to do with it anymore than McCain’s “whiteness” is an issue but republicans (unable to run on the issues because they have nothing new and want to continue this disaster) will frame his being black as an important issue at every opportunity, in the same way Tiger Wood is the black golfer instead of just the great golfer. Just saying

  • I know the US won’t survive long enough to pay off the Irak War debt but my question is has the US even cleared its debt to the Vietnam War Profiteers?

  • Hmm, not to paint with a too broad brush, but it seems to me that people of the same ilk that riduculed midnigt basketball programs are ready to embrace golf for gangstas’

    There must be a great SNL skit here – “Bloods in the Bunker,” and a new line of equipment like Latin King Cobra driver. Remember when Iced Tea was the gangster rage; now, look out for his nephew Sliced-off-the-Tee.

  • Reading these types of stories really makes me cringe about the caliber of people we have in the White House and in Congress. I would hope the next president would be different, but it doesn’t matter what party these people are with, it will still be the same. Look at the political machine behind Obama, how many favors does he have to pay back? McCain (sigh) is almost the same, as his career has shown him to be too close to lobbyists as well.

    The solution is simple: ban professional lobbyists from Congress. Ban any funding to any organization that has a high-level employee even remotely affiliated with government. You would no longer see former congressmen, cabinet members, and other ex-government “servants” getting snatched up by any corporation or non-profit.

    The government is getting way too cozy with Big Business and Big Charities, it’s time for change.

  • What amazes me is, Pres. Clinton was almost impeached for getting Oral from a $2 tramp, while ‘lil Bush(and friends) contiuously sodomize the whole country seemingly unapproached! So, my question is what kind of weak pukes are we letting ourselves become!?

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