BIG Thieves

SHELL GAMES: A Reuters Investigation

Articles in this series are exploring the extent and impact of corporate secrecy in the United States.

CHEYENNE/ATLANTA (Reuters) - The secretive business havens of Cyprus and the Cayman Islands face a potent rival: Cheyenne, Wyoming.

At a single address in this sleepy city of 60,000 people, more than 2,000 companies are registered. The building, 2710 Thomes Avenue, isn't a shimmering skyscraper filled with A-list corporations. It's a 1,700-square-foot brick house with a manicured lawn, a few blocks from the State Capitol.

Neighbors say they see little activity there besides regular mail deliveries and a woman who steps outside for smoke breaks. Inside, however, the walls of the main room are covered floor to ceiling with numbered mailboxes labeled as corporate "suites." A bulky copy machine sits in the kitchen. In the living room, a woman in a headset answers calls and sorts bushels of mail.

A Reuters investigation has found the house at 2710 Thomes Avenue serves as a little Cayman Island on the Great Plains. It is the headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services, a business-incorporation specialist that establishes firms which can be used as "shell" companies, paper entities able to hide assets.

Wyoming Corporate Services will help clients create a company, and more: set up a bank account for it; add a lawyer as a corporate director to invoke attorney-client privilege; even appoint stand-in directors and officers as high as CEO. Among its offerings is a variety of shell known as a "shelf" company, which comes with years of regulatory filings behind it, lending a greater feeling of solidity.

"A corporation is a legal person created by state statute that can be used as a fall guy, a servant, a good friend or a decoy," the company's website boasts. "A person you control... yet cannot be held accountable for its actions. Imagine the possibilities!"

Among the entities registered at 2710 Thomes, Reuters found, is a shelf company sheltering real-estate assets controlled by a jailed former prime minister of Ukraine, according to allegations made by a political rival in a federal court in California.

The owner of another shelf company at the address was indicted in April for allegedly helping online-poker operators evade a U.S. ban on Internet gambling. The owner of two other firms there was banned from government contracting in January for selling counterfeit truck parts to the Pentagon.

CASTING THE FIRST STONE

All the activity at 2710 Thomes is part of a little-noticed industry in the U.S.: the mass production of paper businesses. Scores of mass incorporators like Wyoming Corporate Services have set up shop. The hotbeds of the industry are three states with a light regulatory touch-Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada.

The pervasiveness of corporate secrecy on America's shores stands in stark contrast to Washington's message to the rest of the world. Since the September 11 attacks in 2001, the U.S. has been calling forcefully for greater transparency in global transactions, to lift the veil on shadowy money flows. During a debate in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama singled out Ugland House in the Cayman Islands, reportedly home to some 12,000 offshore corporations, as "either the biggest building or the biggest tax scam on record."

Yet on U.S. soil, similar activity is perfectly legal. The incorporation industry, overseen by officials in the 50 states, has few rules. Convicted felons can operate firms which create companies, and buy them with no background checks.

No states license mass incorporators, and only a few require them to formally register with state authorities. None collect the names and addresses of "beneficial owners," the individuals with a controlling interest in corporations, according to a 2009 report by the National Association of Secretaries of State, a group for state officials overseeing incorporation. Wyoming and Nevada allow the real owners of corporations to hide behind "nominee" officers and directors with no direct role in the business, often executives of the mass incorporator.

"In the U.S., (business incorporation) is completely unregulated," says Jason Sharman, a professor at Griffith University in Nathan, Australia, who is preparing a study for the World Bank on corporate formation worldwide. "Somalia has slightly higher standards than Wyoming and Nevada."

An estimated 2 million corporations and limited liability companies are created each year in the U.S., according to Senate investigators. The Treasury Department has singled out LLCs as particularly vulnerable to being used as shell companies, as they can be owned by anyone and managed anonymously. Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming had 688,000 LLCs on file in 2009, up from 624,000 in 2007.

Treasury and state banking regulators say banks have flagged billions of dollars in suspicious transactions involving U.S. shell companies in recent years. On June 10, a federal judge in Oregon ordered a company registered there to pay $60 million for defrauding a Ukrainian government agency through sham transactions involving shell companies. The civil lawsuit described a network of U.S.-registered shells connected to fraud in Eastern Europe and Afghanistan.

A growing niche in the shell business is shelf corporations. Like paper-only shells, which enable the secrecy-minded to hide real ownership of assets, shelf companies are set up by firms like Wyoming Corporate Services, then left "on the shelf" to season for years. They're then sold later to owners looking for a quick way to secure bank loans, bid on contracts, and project financial stability. To speed up business activity, shelf corporations can often be purchased with established bank accounts, credit histories and tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

"They just slot in your names, and you walk away with the company. Presto!" says Daniel E. Karson, executive managing director at investigative firm Kroll Inc. "The purpose is to conceal ownership."

On its website, Wyoming Corporate Services currently lists more than 700 shelf companies for sale in 37 states. The older they are, the more expensive, like Scotch whisky. Brookside Management Inc., formed in December 2004, sells for $5,995, while Knotty Management LLC, formed in May, costs just $645. In Delaware, incorporator Harvard Business Services markets First Family LLC, created in May 1997, for $10,000.

"If they're signing a large contract, they may not want it to look like they've just formed a company," said Brett Melson, director of U.S. sales at Harvard Business Services. But he added: "Unsavory characters can do a lot of bad things with the companies."

Shell and shelf companies do serve legitimate purposes. They provide a quick and cheap way for entrepreneurs to jump into business and create jobs. Businesses can use them to protect trade secrets. Politicians or other public figures may use a shell company to hold their home so that people with ill intent have a harder time locating them.

The state of Wyoming says it cracked down on incorporation services in 2009 after discovering that nearly 5,700 companies were registered to post-office boxes. New laws require companies to have a physical presence in the state through an owner or a registered agent, and make it a felony to submit false filings.

"What we want to have is good, quality legitimate businesses," said Patricia O'Brien, Wyoming's Deputy Secretary of State. "We don't regulate what the business itself does, but we are not recruiting businesses here that are questionable or illegal."

Wyoming Corporate Services is run by Gerald Pitts, its 54-year-old founder and president. On paper, he is a prolific businessman. Incorporation data provided by Westlaw, a unit of Thomson Reuters, show that Pitts is listed as a director, president or principal for at least 41 companies registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue.

Another 248 firms name Edge Financial Inc., another incorporation service, as their "manager." Gerald Pitts is the president of Edge Financial, according to records on file with the Wyoming secretary of state's office.

Companies registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue have been named in a dozen civil lawsuits alleging unpaid taxes, securities fraud and trademark infringement since 2007, a review of Westlaw data shows. State and federal tax authorities have filed liens against companies registered at the address seeking to collect more than $300,000 in unpaid taxes, according to Westlaw.

Pitts says Wyoming Corporate Services fully complies with the law and doesn't have any knowledge of how clients use the companies he registers. "However, we recognize that business entities (whether aged, shell or traditional) may be used for both good and ill," Pitts wrote in an email to Reuters. "WCS will always cooperate with law enforcement agencies who request information or assistance. WCS does not provide any product or service with the intent that it be used to violate the law."

THE UKRAINE CONNECTION

Gerald Pitts and his own incorporation firms have never been sued or sanctioned, according to federal and state court records. Wyoming officials said Wyoming Corporate Services operates legally. "If they do it by cubby holes and they are really representing each person, they meet the law," said O'Brien, the deputy secretary of state.

But clients of his have run into trouble.

Among those registered at the little house in Cheyenne are two small companies formed through Wyoming Corporate Services that sold knock-off truck parts to the U.S. Department of Defense, according to a Reuters review of two federal contracting databases and findings from an investigation by the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency. The owner of those firms, Atilla Kan, awaits sentencing on a 2007 conviction for wire fraud in a related matter.

Also linked to 2710 Thomes is former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who was once ranked the eighth-most corrupt official in the world by watchdog group Transparency International. He is now serving an eight-year jail term in California for a 2004 conviction on money-laundering and extortion charges. According to court records, that scheme used shell companies and offshore bank accounts to hide stolen Ukrainian government funds.

Court records submitted in Lazarenko's criminal case and documents from a separate civil lawsuit, as well as interviews with lawyers familiar with the matter, indicate Lazarenko controls a shelf company incorporated in Cheyenne that owns an estimated $72 million in real estate in Ukraine through other companies.

The U.S. government continues to seek more than $250 million from bank accounts in Antigua, Barbuda, Guernsey and other countries that it says were controlled by Lazarenko and his associates, according to a forfeiture action filed by the Department of Justice.

The paper trail linking Lazarenko to the real estate in Ukraine is labyrinthine. At the heart of it is a shelf company called Capital Investments Group, registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue.

U.S. lawyers for a Ukrainian businessman named Gennady Korban submitted documents claiming that Lazarenko is the true owner of Capital Investments Group and other U.S. companies.

Lazarenko and Korban are rivals in Ukraine, and for years have traded allegations of corruption and assassination. An organization chart accompanying Korban's submission alleges Capital Investments Group owns 99.99 percent of a Ukrainian firm called OOO Capital Investments Group. That company, the chart claims, is the owner of another company, OOO Ukrainsky Tyutyun, where Pavlo Lazarenko is a director. Each of the firms and several others are used as corporate fronts to control properties in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, the filing alleges.

Seven properties are named in the 2009 filing by Korban, including 55 Pushkin Street and 58 Komsomolskaya Street. The dossier on Capital Investments Group claims that other directors of the alleged front companies include Lazarenko's wife, son and mother-in-law.

Federal prosecutors successfully urged the court in late 2009 to disregard Korban's submissions, arguing that it would take too much time to vet his account and thus delay his resentencing after a lengthy appeal.

A few months later, in February 2010, Capital Investments Group sued Korban and others in federal court in Delaware. That lawsuit claims two properties in the Ukraine controlled by Capital Investments Group - 55 Pushkin Street and 58 Komsomolskaya Street - were stolen from it using forged documents.

The lawsuit says Capital Investments was formed in September 2005. It is registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue, and Gerald Pitts, the court documents say, is "President, Secretary, Chairman and director."

But Capital Investments Group doesn't disclose the name of its owners. Daniel Horowitz and Martin Garbus, attorneys for the company, have represented Pavlo Lazarenko in other U.S. and Ukrainian litigation. They declined to provide the owners' names, citing client confidentiality, and wouldn't comment on Lazarenko's links to CIG.

The U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco declined to comment. Asked about his association with Lazarenko and Capital Investments Group, Gerald Pitts declined to provide information on specific clients. Pitts said he is aware of the Delaware lawsuit and "is cooperating fully with authorities in the matter."

POKER EMPIRE

Another man linked to 2710 Thomes is Ira N. Rubin. Prosecutors allege he created a Rube Goldberg-style network of shell and shelf corporations to further his scams.

In December 2006, the Federal Trade Commission sued Rubin for fraud in federal court in Tampa. Documents in the civil lawsuit allege Rubin used at least 18 different front companies to obscure his role as a credit-card processor for telemarketing scams.

These operations, the FTC alleged, offered subprime credit cards that charged an upfront fee debited from customers' bank accounts, but the cards were never delivered. The complaint also alleged Rubin processed payments for online gambling rings and pharmacy websites selling controlled substances.

One company in that network was Elite Funding Group Inc. It was registered at 2710 Thomes Avenue in August 2004 and offered for sale by Wyoming Corporate Services for $1,095. Gerald Pitts was listed in public documents as the original director, wrote an investigator hired by the FTC in a January 2007 report filed in federal court in Tampa. Pitts had resigned six months earlier as director and was replaced by Rubin, according to court records.

Rubin's maze-like network served as the back office for alleged consumer scams operating from Canada, the Philippines, Cyprus and the U.S., with names like Freedom Pharmacy and Fun Time Bingo. His companies took consumer bank account information obtained by the clients, charged the accounts via an electronic transactions network that enables direct debits, kept a portion of the proceeds, and forwarded the rest to the alleged fraudsters, according to documents in the FTC's civil lawsuit.

To minimize scrutiny, Rubin used at least 18 different firms to handle his operations. A firm called Global Marketing Group processed payments for telemarketers offering bogus credit cards, the FTC alleged. Elite Funding, the Wyoming shelf corporation, was a subsidiary of Global Marketing. Rubin used Elite to open bank accounts with Wells Fargo Bank which held more than $300,000 in proceeds from the payment processing, according to court records.

Just hours after Rubin was visited by a court-appointed receiver in the case in December 2006, $249,000 vanished from the Wells Fargo account. Rubin refused to say if he transferred the money, citing his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. At least $125,000 then made its way to a bank account in Chennai, India, and has never been recovered, according to documents in the civil lawsuit.

Why use a shelf company? "To hide who they are and what they are doing. In the case of Ira Rubin, he had a payment processing empire that worked on behalf of many different industries, all of which were engaged in illegal conduct," said James Davis, an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission. "It was to his benefit to make it as difficult as possible for law enforcement to connect these companies back to him."

In 2008, Rubin fled to Costa Rica to avoid arrest for contempt in the civil case. Authorities allege he went on to run another payment-processing operation from abroad: This March 10, he and 10 others were indicted in New York for allegedly running a massive scheme to hide payments made by U.S. customers to the three largest online-poker websites, in violation of a ban passed by Congress in 2006. He was extradited from Guatemala the same month. On June 8, a New York judge denied bail for Rubin. (http://link.reuters.com/jud42s)

Stuart Meissner, an attorney for Rubin, said his client was not available for comment. Pitts declined to comment.

AMERICAN LOOPHOLES

The loopholes in U.S. disclosure of bank-account and shell-company ownership have drawn fire.

The U.S. was declared "non-compliant" in four out of 40 categories monitored by the Financial Action Task Force, an international group fighting money laundering and terrorism finance, in a 2006 evaluation report, its most recent. Two of those ratings relate to scant information collected on the owners of corporations. The task force named Wyoming, Nevada and Delaware as secrecy havens. Only three states - Alaska, Arizona and Montana - require regular disclosure of corporate shareholders in some form, according to the 2009 report by the National Association of Secretaries of State.

Some lawmakers want tighter rules. Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee's Permanent Subcommittee for Investigations, has introduced the Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act each year since 2008. The bill would require states to obtain and update information about the real owners of companies, and impose civil and criminal sanctions for filing false information.

"Criminals use U.S. shell companies to commit financial fraud, drug trafficking, even terrorist financing, in part because our states don't require anyone to name the owners of the companies they form," Levin said in an email to Reuters.

The bill has been beaten back by a coalition of state officials and business groups, citing concerns about the cost of implementing the new law and federal government infringement on state incorporation rights.

A leading opponent is the National Association of Secretaries of State. Kay Stimson, a spokeswoman, said in an email that the Levin bill "would have placed new burdens upon states and legitimate, law-abiding businesses-many of which are struggling to stay afloat during these difficult financial times-while continuing to provide lawbreakers with the means to evade the law."

An aide for Levin said the bill is expected to be re-introduced soon. The new bill will add provisions requiring incorporation agents who sell shelf companies to provide beneficial owner data, said a Senate aide familiar with it.

CAT AND MOUSE

Shell companies remain a headache for law-enforcement authorities. Officials say court-ordered subpoenas served on incorporators of shell and shelf corporations generally do deliver the names of the real owners hiding behind nominees. But if the owners are not U.S. citizens or companies, the investigation often hits a dead-end, they say.

There are additional hurdles. Wyoming Corporate Services charges $2,500 per year to supply an attorney who can provide an extra shield. Cheyenne attorney Graham Norris Jr. tells prospective clients sent to him by WCS that he will create a company on their behalf. That way, he says, he can invoke attorney-client privilege-adding a layer of privacy anytime there is an inquiry about their identities.

"When you do need to contact Wyoming Corporate Services, you may do so through me," advises a June 13 "Dear Client" letter supplied by Norris to Reuters. "If you contact them directly, there is a greater risk they may disclose that information in response to a subpoena; remember there is no privilege with Wyoming Corporate Services, only with your attorney."

For a fee, clients can request that Norris file a motion to quash any subpoena, the letter says. It warns that in cases where fraud or criminal conduct is alleged, a court might order Norris to name the owners. Still, after any inquiry about identity, the letter says, Norris must inform the client-and "I must also decline to answer the inquiry."

Investigators say they are sometimes loath to use subpoenas for the very reason highlighted in Norris' letter-fear of tipping off targets. "In the initial stages of investigation, when we encounter a domestic shell corporation, we know we can't subpoena the company that sold the corporation to the end users, because we don't want the target to find out they are being investigated," says FTC attorney James Davis.

Other U.S. agencies raise similar complaints about shells. The 2006 U.S. Money Laundering Threat Assessment, prepared by 16 federal agencies, devotes a chapter to the ways U.S. shell companies can be attractive vehicles to hide ill-gotten funds. It includes a chart to show why money launderers might like to create shells in Wyoming, Nevada or Delaware, which offer the highest levels of corporate anonymity.

The information in the chart is credited to the Web site of a firm called Corporations Today-an incorporation service run by Gerald Pitts in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

(Reporting by Kelly Carr in Cheyenne and Brian Grow in Atlanta; additional reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco, Jen Rogers and Jaime Hellman in Cheyenne; research by Mary Kivimaki of Westlaw; editing by Claudia Parsons and Michael Williams)

Michelle Bachmann

WASHINGTON (AP) — Michele Bachmann's claim that she has "never gotten a penny" from a family farm that's been subsidized by the government is at odds with her financial disclosure statements. They show tens of thousands in personal income from the operation.

And, on a less substantive note, she flubbed her hometown history when declaring "John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa," and "that's the kind of spirit that I have, too," in running for president.

The actor was born nearly 150 miles away. It was the serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr. who lived, for a time, in Waterloo.

Those were among the latest examples of how the Minnesota congresswoman has become one to watch — for inaccuracies as well as rising support — in the Republican presidential race.

Bachmann's wildly off-base assertion last month that a NATO airstrike might have killed as many as 30,000 Libyan civilians, her misrepresentations of the health care law, misfires on other aspects of President Barack Obama's record and historical inaccuracies have saddled her with a reputation for uttering populist jibes that don't hold up.

She announced her candidacy Monday in Iowa with a speech typical for someone joining the campaign. It laid out the broad themes of her candidacy and mostly avoided the Bachmann bomblets that have grabbed attention — and often fizzled under scrutiny — in the long lead-up.

The more the political season heats up, the more that exaggerations and sound-bite oversimplifications emanate from the Republicans going after Obama — and from the Democrats playing defense. Still, Bachmann's record on this score is distinct.

Examining 24 of her statements, Politifact.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking service of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, found just one to be fully true and 17 to be false (seven of them "pants on fire" false). No other Republican candidate whose statements have been vigorously vetted matched that record of inaccuracy.

A look at some of her recent statements and how they compare with the facts:

BACHMANN: "The farm is my father-in-law's farm. It's not my husband and my farm. It's my father-in-law's farm. And my husband and I have never gotten a penny of money from the farm." — On "Fox News Sunday."

THE FACTS: In personal financial disclosure reports required annually from members of Congress, Bachmann reported that she holds an interest in a family farm in Independence, Wis., with her share worth between $100,000 and $250,000.

The farm, which was owned by her father-in-law, produced income for Bachmann of at least $32,500 and as much as $105,000 from 2006 through 2009, according to the reports she filed for that period. The farm also received federal crop and disaster subsidies, according to a database maintained by the Environmental Working Group. From 1995 through 2010, the farm got $259,332 in federal payments.

When asked about the subsidies and her income from the farm late last year, a spokesman for Bachmann said only that she wasn't involved in decisions about the running of the farm.

Bachmann told The Associated Press on Monday that her husband became a trustee of the farm because his father had dementia before he died two years ago, and "oversees the legal entity."

"Everything we do with those forms is in an abundance of caution," she said, insisting she and her husband receive no farm income despite the forms reporting it.

___

BACHMANN: "Well what I want them to know is, just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, that's the kind of spirit that I have, too." — Speaking to Fox News on Sunday.

Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, nearly three hours away, and moved to California in his childhood. John Wayne Gacy, convicted of killing 33 men and boys, was born in Chicago, moved to Waterloo to work in his father-in-law's chicken restaurants and first ran afoul of the law there, sentenced to 10 years for sodomy. He began his killing spree after his release, and his return to Illinois.

Bachmann told CNN on Tuesday her comments "were just misspeaking" and that her main intent was to show she identified with Wayne's patriotism.

___

BACHMANN: "Overnight we are hearing that potentially 10 to 30,000 people could have been killed in the strike." — Criticizing Obama in May for the "foolish" U.S. intervention in Libya, and citing what she said were reports of a civilian death toll from a NATO strike as high as 30,000.

THE FACTS: The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, said in late April that U.S. officials have seen reports that 10,000 to 30,000 people may have died in Moammar Gadhafi's crackdown on protesters and the fighting between rebels and pro-government forces, but it is hard to know if that is true. He was speaking about all casualties of the conflict; no one has attributed such a death toll to NATO bombing alone, much less to a single strike.

___

BACHMANN: "It's ironic and sad that the president released all of the oil from the strategic oil reserve. ... There's only a limited amount of oil that we have in the strategic oil reserve. It's there for emergencies." — On CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday.

THE FACTS: Obama did not empty all the oil from the strategic reserve, as Bachmann said. He approved the release of 30 million barrels, about 4 percent of the 727 million barrels stored in salt caverns along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. It's true that the U.S. normally taps the reserve for more dire emergencies than exist today, and that exposes Obama to criticism that he acted for political gain. But the reserve has never been fuller; it held 707 million barrels when last tapped, after 2008 hurricanes.

___

BACHMANN: "One. That's the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office." — Comment to a conservative conference in Iowa in March.

THE FACTS: The Obama administration issued more than 200 new drilling permits before the Gulf oil spill alone. Over the past year, since new safety standards were imposed, the administration has issued more than 60 shallow-water drilling permits. Since the deep water moratorium was lifted in October, nine new wells have been approved.

Who Are the Women Who Voted Against Health Care For Women?

... from Marie Claire Magazine July 2011

This past Spring, Republicans in the House of Representatives pushed through a budget bill that included cutting off funds for Planned Parenthood.  This move was a war on women, fueled by misinformation about federal funding and abortion. 

Under current law, funds to Planned Parenthood go to cancer screenings, STD testing, birth control, and other preventative services for women - not abortion. 

Do you think these Congresswomen were unaware of the law as it currently stands?  Or do you think they used this opportunity to misinform the public, while making a grandstand vote for a bill that stood no chance of passing?

Either way, thankfully, the bill did not pass, but who are these congresswomen who voted to deny other women, in need these vital services?

Rep. Sandy Adams (Republican) FL

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (Republican) MN

Rep. Diane Black (Republican) from TN

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (Republican) TN

Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle (Republican) NY

Rep. Rene Ellmers (Republican) NC

Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (Republican) MO

Rep. Virginia Foxx (Republican) NC

Rep. Kay Granger (Republican) TX

Rep. Vickie Hartzler (Republican) MO

Rep. Nan Hayworth (Republican) NY

Rep Jaime Herrera Beutler (Republican) WA

Rep. Lynn Jenkins (Republican) KS

Rep. Cynthia Lummis (Republican) WY

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Republican) WA

Rep. Candace Miller (Republican) MI

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (Republican) WV

Rep. Sue Myrick (Republican) NC

Rep. Kristi Noem (Republican) SD

Rep.Martha Roby (Republican) AL

Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Republican) FL

Rep. Jean Schmidt (Republican) OH

                                                                                              

Good Dog

ELLICOTT CITY, Md. -- A dog named Dozer who escaped from his owners' yard surprised them by going on to run most of the Maryland Half Marathon before returning.


The 3-year-old golden doodle apparently joined runners at mile five of the marathon in Howard County on May 15.


Runners reported seeing him at several points along the race, and there's video of him crossing the finish line at 2 hours and 14 minutes.


Dozer then found his way home, dog tired.


Race officials later honored him with a medal. Video of him crossing the finish line has been viewed thousands of times on YouTube.


Though he was a late entrant, Dozer's family set up a fundraising page to benefit the race's beneficiary, the University of Maryland's Greenbaum Cancer Center.


He has raised more than $13,000.

And the Agencies that They REALLY Need to Investigate Aren't Even Mentioned - Can You Say FRAUD WASTE AND ABUSE OF TAX PAYER FUNDS?

Labor-management council urges closer look at delinquent agencies

By Emily Long elong@govexec.com June 15, 2011

This story has been updated from the original version.

Members of the government's council on labor-management relations are concerned that some federal agencies are making only a minimal effort to boost communication and collaboration with employees.

During the council's monthly meeting on Wednesday, Obama administration officials said anecdotal evidence shows that forums designed to improve the relationship between federal managers and labor representatives appear to be driving meaningful change. But union leaders stressed that the success stories shouldn't overshadow agencies that aren't making the cut.

"We can't go to the president and say there are only success stories," said Greg Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. "There aren't . . . it's great to explore success stories and why they happened and can we emulate them, but it's also important to see where we haven't succeeded and why not and what can we do about it."

The council has a tentative deadline in November to submit a report to President Obama evaluating the results of agency efforts and recommending next steps.

According to Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry, frustration continues over the lack of progress at the Social Security Administration. Pre-decisional involvement, in which management engages with labor representatives prior to making decisions that affect employees' daily work, is not yet in place, Berry said, adding this is a "major speed bump in terms of progress of their effort and a major distraction."

An SSA spokeswoman said the agency is actively engaged with unions representing its employees and continues to work with IFPTE and the National Treasury Employees Union to develop individual forums.

Carol A. Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association, asked that the council take a broader view of agencies' progress on standing up forums and hear reports from delinquent agencies. Berry said OPM will follow up with agencies to let them know where they stand and to engage them in the process.

"My goal in this is not to have a bell curve, but nor are we going to look the other way," Berry said. "This isn't about Candy Land."

Michael Filler, director of public services at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said the metrics working group is close to finalizing a webinar series to educate forum members on developing or refining their tools for assessing progress.

Council members also are participating in a working group with representatives from the Chief Human Capital Officers Council to improve government's performance management system. The group in September will present recommendations to the labor-management council. In March, Berry said the discussion will not include pay for performance.

The National Council on Federal Labor-Management Relations was created through a 2009 executive order. Its next meeting is scheduled for July 20.

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House Republicans contest Obama's use of autopen - But it was OK when Bush used it

Just come out and say it.  WE DON'T LIKE YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE BLACK - SO EVERYTHING YOU DO IS WRONG,

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Twenty-one Republican House members wrote President Barack Obama on Friday, asking him to promise to never again use a long-distance "autopen" to sign a bill.

Last month, Congress authorized an extension of the post-9/11 Patriot Act just 15 minutes before the expiration of key provisions allowing for controversial search and surveillance powers.

Obama, however, was in France at the time, and authorized one of his staff to use the so-called autopen to sign the bill into law.

The House members asked Obama to sign the Patriot Act extension again, "out of an abundance of caution," noting that the US constitution says the president must sign a bill before it becomes law.

"Mr. President, it is clear that assigning a surrogate the responsibility of signing bills passed by Congress is a debatable issue, and could be challenged in court," the Republican House members wrote.

The White House based its decision to use the autopen on a 2005 opinion by the Department of Justice, which upheld the constitutionality of its use and was written for the Republican George W. Bush administration.

But, notes the letter, "we are compelled to point out that the memorandum provides a long list of dissenting opinions."

Republicans, particularly supporters of the conservative Tea Party movement, favor a strict interpretation of the US Constitution, particularly with regard to limiting powers delegated to the federal government.

Mothers Who Kill

By JEFFREY KLUGER Jeffrey Kluger – Wed Jun 15, 11:35 pm ET

For any species hoping to survive in the wild, the lifetime to-do list is agreeably brief: eat, mate, defend your turf and above all, protect your young. It's that last one that seems the most primally encoded, and for good reason: it's hardly possible to pass on your genes if your babies die before they're old enough to have offspring of their own. And yet not only do animals sometimes fail to protect the young of their species, they often kill them themselves.

Infanticide is disturbingly common in nature, typically committed by males that take over a pride or pack and kill whatever babies are present to make room for the ones they plan to father. It's not nearly as common for parents to behave as murderously toward their own babies, and it's much rarer still for mothers to be the attacker - especially among primates. Now, a study in the journal Primates has revealed that in a species of monkey known as mustached tamarins, the mamas can be a deadly menace indeed - and their infanticidal tendencies can provide some insight into human behavior too. (See pictures of the primate species facing extinction.)

Mother tamarins do not have an easy job. Gestation is long - about 150 days; they usually have twins, and those twins are usually big. It's up to the mother to carry that double load around until the babies are old enough to navigate the forest canopy themselves. The only thing that makes the work tolerable is that tamarin troops cooperate to rear young, but the conditions have to be right. There must be plenty of males to do the protecting and provisioning, and there can't be too many other females with babies of their own that also require attention.

An international team of researchers led by primatologist Laurence Culot of the University of Liege, in Belgium, ventured into the Amazonian lowlands of Peru to observe four troops of wild mustached tamarins and determine what distinguishes the babies that survive infancy from the ones that don't. The data they collected made those differences immediately clear.

When there were at least three assisting males in the troop, the researches found, the survival rate for infants was an impressive 75%; when there were two or fewer males, the number fell to 42%. When a mother-to-be was the only gestating female in a group, the baby she gave birth to had an 80% chance of surviving at least three months. When there were two or more pregnancies, that forecast plunged to just 20%. "Births must be spaced by three months or more," the authors wrote, "in order to allow efficient helping behavior."

 

Some of the deaths that resulted from bad spacing or inadequate helpers were accidental or from unknown causes. But in a number of cases the researchers observed, infanticide was to blame. And unlike mothers in the marmoset, meerkat and social carnivore species who kill the competing females' offspring, the tamarins killed their own. In some cases, a baby would fall from a tree and receive only indifferent care when it hit the ground - which suggested that the mother either dropped it deliberately or wasn't much concerned when it fell accidentally.

In one other especially gruesome case, the mother killed her baby with a bite to the head, then devoured its brain and part of its upper body - a quick protein hit that she then went to sleep off. At the time of the killing, there were fewer than three helper males in the group, and another female was just a month away from giving birth to her own babies. "Before that," the authors wrote, "the perpetrator had given birth to twins three times successfully when four or five adult or subadult males were present in the group."

The explanation for such pitiless behavior is as cold as it is unavoidable: tamarin mothers are simply very good at balancing their genetic ledgers and know when they're heading for a loss. If they're raising babies that have a poor chance of surviving anyway, why make a pointless investment in time, resources and calories trying to keep them alive? Better to cut their losses, bag the babies and wait for a better season to breed.

Humans recoil at such stark genetic number crunching, but while infanticide among our species is socially and criminally proscribed, it does happen - and far too often. And when mothers are the perps, they are often facing some of the same kinds of pressures as the tamarins - uncertain resources (read: money) and an absent or unreliable male. The overwhelming share of mothers in such situations do nothing so heinous as killing their babies, but one provocative 1999 study argued that postpartum depression (PPD) is an adaptive strategy to achieve the same genetic culling by different means.

Anthropologist Edward Hagen, of the University of California at Santa Barbara, who conducted the work, looked at all of the things his sample group of PPD mothers had in common and was able to rule out some of the obvious variables, such as unemployment or lack of education. Repeatedly, he found that the two things that correlated the most strongly were the health of the infant and the amount of child-care support the mother was getting. "Mothers with PPD mother less," Hagen wrote in his paper. Their depression informs them "that they have suffered a reproductive cost and that successfully motivates them to reduce that cost." (The heat Hagen took for a study that put so unsettling a spin on a psychological condition for which mothers themselves are not to blame discouraged him from pursuing the line of inquiry much further.)

Clearly, depressed or unsupported mothers have options tamarins don't, and in our species at least, nothing excuses willful neglect, never mind murder. But excusing something is not the same as explaining it. We may be the highest of the primates, but we remain members of that sometimes-brutish club, and our lower cousins still do have plenty to teach us.

“You’ll find the biggest banks in America waiting in the wings . . . praying this is going to pass,”

Banks’ bid to delay debit card swipe-fee rules fails as Senate vote falls short

By Ylan Q. Mui and Cezary Podkul, Published: June 8

Banks lost a key battle on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to preserve billions of dollars in debit card fees, despite a lobbying blitzkrieg that tested the industry’s ability to move beyond the stigma of the financial crisis.

A proposal by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) to delay and rewrite a law that curtails the fees merchants must pay to banks each time a debit card is swiped failed to win enough votes to move forward Wednesday. The bill was banks’ last hope for relief before the law takes effect next month, and they unleashed hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations and dozens of lobbyists to drum up support.

That helped escalate what had been an arcane debate about payment processing systems into an epic struggle between Wall Street and Main Street that repeatedly harkened back to the depths of the financial turmoil.

“This is an historic moment . . . when we decide whether or not the big banks are going to lose and the consumers are going to win,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), whose original legislation was Tester’s target.

Dodd-Frank law

Swipe fees are part of the Dodd-Frank legislation that Congress passed last summer to overhaul the nation’s financial system and that the banking industry has tried to dismantle. Financial firms want to revamp the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and tried to alter new oversights of the vast derivatives market. But Wednesday’s defeat could dampen any momentum.

“This tells you that the door is closed to revamping Dodd-Frank until after the 2012 elections,” said Jaret Seiberg, policy analyst at Washington Research Group. “The banks are still toxic, and they just don’t have the clout yet that they wielded prior to the crisis.”

Meanwhile, retailers tapped into consumer frustration over the sputtering economic recovery. Retail trade groups such as the National Retail Federation and the Retail Industry Leaders Association likened the fee, which averages 1 to 2 percent of the price of each transaction, to a hidden tax that drives up the cost for everyday goods and ate into the profits of small businesses. Durbin championed the cause as a way to save consumers money and boost the economy, and the measure passed the Senate last year with 64 votes.

The Federal Reserve then drafted regulations that would slash swipe fees, also known as interchange fees, by nearly 70 percent to a maximum of 12 cents per transaction. The final rules have not yet been issued. But the proposed reduction was bigger than banks had feared, and they wasted no effort in attacking the law.

According to the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit government watchdog, financial firms and their trade groups funneled $662,000 to lawmakers through the Electronic Payments Coalition political action committee during the first few months of the year. The industry plastered ads across the Washington area’s Metro trains and convened a global security summit to highlight the costs of preventing debit card fraud — an expense that it said could not be covered in 12 cents a swipe.

Smaller banks

Community banks have been just as vocal in their opposition as the largest firms. The law excuses institutions with assets of less than $10 billion, but community banks worry whether the exemption is airtight. After the vote Wednesday, Independent Community Bankers of America chief executive Cam Fine said he was concerned that small banks will raise fees and turn off low-income consumers.  

“It’s a real kick in the teeth to local customers who rely on community banks that offer the valuable banking services they have come to expect,” he said in a statement.

Tester echoed those sentiments, raising fears that the lower fees may cause some banks to close — a devastating prospect in the small towns of his home state of Montana. He bristled at Durbin’s accusations that gutting the law amounted to “a second installment” of the $700 billion government program to bolster troubled banks.

“Look at me. Do I look like a banker?” Tester said Wednesday. “I wouldn’t be supporting this if it were a bailout.”

But Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who co-sponsored Tester’s bill, said lawmakers were loath to change their votes on the issue and support the proposal. After the tally Wednesday fell six short of the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster of Tester’s amendment, Corker dismissed any industry hopes of a second chance anytime soon.

“I got other fish to fry, and we pretty well cooked this one,” he said.

Debit Card Lies

Senate REJECTS delay of debit-card regulations, ends K-Street battle

By Alexander Bolton - 06/08/11 02:45 PM ET

“It’s our choice about whether or not these banks are going to prevail or not,” Durbin said. “And history will record the strength of consumers, and small businesses across America against the Wall Street banks who take away more than half of the interchange fees on debit cards that are collected across America.”

A bipartisan coalition of senators on Wednesday rejected a heavily-lobbied proposal to delay regulations on debit card fees, which will save retailers and cost banks billions of dollars in revenue.

Fifty-four senators voted in favor and 45 voted against the measure, which needed 60 votes to pass. Nineteen Democrats joined 35 Republicans voting yes.

The vote is a major victory for Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), who sponsored legislation last year directing the Federal Reserve to review the fees banks charge on debit transactions.

Durbin's side was supported by 12 Republicans and 32 Democrats, plus independent Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.). Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) did not vote.

The Fed is on pace to issue final rules by July 21 that could cap fees at 12 cents per transaction, a fraction of the 44-cent average banks now charge.

Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), backed by a well-financed banking lobbyists, led the charge to require the Fed to delay its rulemaking process to allow for further study.

Durbin, however, charged it was a veiled effort to kill the rulemaking process and argued the agency, which has collected 11,000 comments on the issue, has studied the proposed rule long enough.

The contentious issue split the Democratic leadership. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sided with Durbin.

Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking member of the Democratic leadership and Durbin’s rival to succeed Reid as leader, voted with Tester and Corker.

The policy fight triggered the biggest K-Street battle of the year and may have helped Tester collect tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from banking interests.

Public fundraising records show Tester collected nearly $60,000 in contributions from credit card companies and other opponents to proposed caps on swipe fees in the 17 days following the introduction of his legislation.

Speaking before the vote, Tester downplayed the influence of banking lobbyists and contributions.

“Look at me. Do I look like a banker?” said Tester, a burly farmer who still sports a flat-top. “Senator Corker and myself drew this amendment up. The banks did not draw up this amendment.”

Durbin said throughout the debate that he has the highest respect for Tester and held no animosity toward his adversary. Even so, the issue appeared highly personal to Durbin, who delivered a ringing, impassioned speech before the vote.

Not Many Soldiers Fly First Class Out of The War Zone

Soldiers Coming Home from Afghanistan

Charged $2,800 in Luggage Fees 

(CNN) -- Delta Air Lines says it's sorry "for any miscommunication" after U.S. Army soldiers returning from Afghanistan complained that they were charged almost $3,000 in bag fees by the carrier.

The incident has sparked outrage online after the servicemen spoke out about their experience in a video posted on YouTube.

In the clip -- which the men say was recorded on board a Delta flight from Baltimore to Atlanta on Tuesday, a day after they returned from Afghanistan -- the soldiers explain they had "a little issue with the bags."

CNN affiliate WXIA in Atlanta identified the soldiers as U.S. Army Staff Sgts. Fred Hilliker and Robert O'Hair.

The men, who were bound for Fort Polk, Louisiana, said their military travel orders allowed them to carry up to four bags, but when they arrived at the airport in Baltimore, Delta told them it allows military personnel to check only three bags for free.

Members of the unit who were traveling with four bags ended up paying out of pocket for their extra luggage, the soldiers said in the video. They were charged $200 per extra bag, so the 34-member unit ended up paying more than $2,800 in bag fees, the soldiers added.

Any extra bag fees charged by an airline will be reimbursed by the government, a military spokeswoman told CNN affiliate WGCL in Atlanta.

One of the soldiers in the video said the bag he had to pay for was a weapons case that contained "the tools that I used to protect myself and Afghan citizens while I was deployed in the country."

The other man then looked into the camera, exasperated.

"Good business model, Delta," he said sarcastically. "Not happy, not happy at all," he added, shaking his head.

After online commenters called Delta everything from "un-American" to "disgusting" in response to the video, the airline scrambled to explain the incident.

On its blog, the carrier said it deeply respects and admires men and women in uniform and added that it has worked hard to ensure that U.S. military personnel get "additional flexibility" when they travel on the carrier.

Delta explained that active-duty U.S. military personnel traveling on orders can check up to four bags in First/Business class and three bags in coach for free on both domestic and international flights.

Other airlines, like United and US Airways, have similar policies.

"We would like to publicly apologize to those service men and women for any miscommunication regarding our current policies as well as any inconvenience we may have caused," wrote Rachael Rensink, manager of Delta Social Media.

The carrier said it will be reaching out to each soldier personally to "address their concerns and work to correct any issues they have faced."

The soldiers may have been misinformed about how many bags traveling active duty military personnel can check for free, Stars and Stripes reported.