With U.S. taxpayers footing the bill, warlords among beneficiaries of Pentagon subcontracts
In November 2009, a British security company tries to secure a temporary Iraqi Police station construction site in Mosul.
Afghan contractors unload a pipe for a drainage system in Kandahar province in 2009.
As Battle for Financial Reform Moves to Bureaucracy, Industry Lobbyists Outnumber Consumer Advocates 50-to-1
As the battle over Wall Street reform shifts venues – from Capitol Hill to federal agencies – industry lobbyists who oppose some new regulations outnumber consumer advocates 50 to 1, an analysis of lobbying disclosure data shows.
Although Congress passed and President Obama signed the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act last month, Congress did not iron out many of the law’s details. Lawmakers instead left that task up to regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, FDIC and Federal Reserve. Read more »
Student Credit Card Story Inspires a Congressman, a One-Woman Protest and Some Citizen Journalism
(Illustration by Michael Ono, Huffington Post Investigative Fund; Image from Flickr by georgefoxuniversity)
For nearly two decades, Princeton University has been able to count on Donna Riley—and her money.
Every year since she graduated, Riley has donated to her school’s annual alumni fundraising drive.
“I happen to have a perfect giving record 17 years out from graduation,” she said.
This year, she’s thinking differently. “I told them I won't give again until they stop this practice of making money off of student credit card debt.” Read more »
City Council Aims to Prevent Investors from Seizing Homes Over Small Water Bills, Other Debts
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake says homeowners should have to pay their debts. Photo courtesy of mayor's website.
It’s too late to help Vicki Valentine—the Baltimore woman who lost her family’s mortgage-free home over an unpaid water bill of $362—but city officials are trying to prevent others from suffering the same fate. Read more »
Previously Undisclosed Hospital Mixup Underscores Challenges on Road to Reform
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FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg's agency has been at odds with National Coordinator for Health Information Technology David Blumenthal's office on oversight of electronic health records. (Photos: Emma Schwartz and Courtesy of US Mission Geneva via Flickr)
Computers at a major Midwest hospital chain went awry on June 29, posting some doctors’ orders to the wrong medical charts in a few cases and possibly putting patients in harm’s way.
The digital records system “would switch to another patient record without the user directing it to do so,” said Stephen Shivinsky, vice-president for corporate communications at Trinity Health System. Trinity operates 46 hospitals, most in Michigan, Iowa and Ohio. Read more »
In an article in today's Seattle Times, a spokesman for House defense appropriations chairman Norm Dicks criticizes as "an egregious error" our story on earmark requests by a number of members of Congress, including the powerful Washington Democrat. Read more »
Posted: 9:06 am Jul 15, 2010
Challenge Accuracy of Report by the Investigative Fund
Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash (Photo by WSDOT on Flickr)
A $6.2 million federal spending request by U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks is intended solely for the University of Washington – and no money will be shared with business partner Intellicheck Mobilisa, a university spokesman said. Read more »
Agency Says Company's Evidence 'Scientifically More Robust' than Independent Research
(Illustration by Lagan Sebert, Huffington Post Investigative Fund, EPA Image by Harry Hanbury, Crop Duster image from flickr by Jenni Jones)
Companies with a financial interest in a weed-killer sometimes found in drinking water paid for thousands of studies federal regulators are using to assess the herbicide’s health risks, records of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show. Many of these industry-funded studies, which largely support atrazine’s safety, have never been published or subjected to an independent scientific peer review. Read more »
Some Members of Congress Funnel Tax Dollars for Businesses Through Universities and Nonprofits
David Obey (D-WI),Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee (Photo by Lagan Sebert, Huffington Post Investigative Fund)
Editor’s Note: A chart involving an earmark request by Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., has been removed pending further review. Dicks has challenged some of the reporting, as has a spokesman at the University of Washington. More information Read more »
Targeting the Chronically Ill, Obama Administration Bets Millions
Debra Richardson stands next to her house in the Mississippi Delta where she struggles with diabetes and other chronic illnesses. (Investigative Fund /Emma Schwartz)
GREENVILLE, Miss.—These days, Debra Richardson, a 53-year-old former schoolteacher with diabetes and other chronic diseases, spends a lot of time thinking about how to turn around her deteriorating health.
She monitors her blood sugar every day. She watches the time so she won’t miss taking her pills. And she regularly attends meetings on how to eat more nutritious foods—all of which her doctors can track with a computerized medical records system. Read more »
Colombia Party Leader-Turned-Presidential Hopeful was Corporate Officer, Documents Show
 arrives at the Pentagon on July 23, 2007, for security talks with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates-DoD photo by R. D. Ward..jpg)
Juan Manuel Santos (left) arrives at the Pentagon on July 23, 2007, for security talks with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates. (Photo by R. D. Ward, U.S. Department of Defense)
BOGOTÁ, Colombia - The man most likely to become Colombia’s next president this Sunday has played a previously undisclosed role as a corporate officer of the company hired to run the nation’s elections over the last decade, while he was a political leader, business records obtained by the Huffington Post Investigative Fund show. Read more »
Colleges Make Millions Selling Access and Addresses to Bank of America
(Illustration by Lagan Sebert, Huffington Post Investigative Fund, Image from Flickr by Demitri.W Photo and iStock photo)
A version of this story was published in the San Francisco Chronicle. The story is one in a series of articles on student debt produced by the Investigative Fund. Read more »
The Orlando Sentinel reveals the Mormon Church hired a major lobbying firm to aid its building development plans in Florida, but failed to disclose the expenses in reports to county commissioners.
Posted: 8:59 am Jun 2, 2010
Mortgage Paid Off, Woman Loses Home -- Over a Small Water Bill
Valentine lost the two-story brick row home after the city sold her debt to investors through a contentious and byzantine legal process called a "tax sale." (Photo by Lagan Sebert / Investigative Fund)
Sheriff's Deputy Carol Canty serves Valentine with eviction papers in February. (Photo by Lagan Sebert / Investigative Fund)
A version of this story appeared in The Baltimore Sun.
One raw day in early February, Vicki Valentine stood by helplessly as real estate investors snatched her West Baltimore home over what began with an unpaid city water bill of $362. Read more »
Amid Attempts to Rein in Wall Street, Persuaders Safeguard Bank’s Interests
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein pauses before a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing last month. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
For all of Goldman Sachs’ professed support for an overhaul of financial regulations, the megabank hasn’t exactly withdrawn its army of lobbyists. Far from wearing out its welcome, the firm is busier than ever safeguarding its interests while a Wall Street crackdown takes shape in Washington. Read more »
Executives unscathed as regulators let banks report criminal fraud
Ted Kaufman, a veteran of the S&L crisis-turned-U.S. Senator, says there haven't been enough cops on the beat. (Photo by Lagan Sebert / Huffington Post Investigative Fund)
The financial crisis has spawned hundreds of criminal prosecutions for alleged fraud. Yet so far, defendants have been mostly minor players such as real-estate agents, mortgage brokers, borrowers and a few low-level bank employees. No senior executives at large financial institutions face criminal charges. Read more »
There is growing evidence that fraud was at the heart of the current financial crisis. But so far, no high-level bank executives have been hauled off to jail. One of the reasons may be that key bank regulators, who are counted on to root out fraud from the companies they regulate, have largely left it to the banks to report suspicious activity themselves. In this story one veteran bank regulator and a fed-up Senator try to answer the question many have pondered since the beginning of the crisis: Why haven't more bank bosses been held responsible for this mess?
» Related Story: Too Big to Jail?
Despite New Findings, Congress isn’t Fixing Regulators' ‘Pitiful Enforcement’
(AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac)
Former Washington Mutual executive Kerry Killinger testifies before the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations, April 13, 2010. (Lagan Sebert / Huffington Post Investigative Fund)
As congressional partisans wrangle over financial reform, neither side is grappling with a fundamental lesson learned from an investigation into the causes of the financial crisis.
A recent Senate inquiry offered a rare peek into the secret world of bank examiners. What it revealed was that regulators had stopped regulating. Read more »
Photo by Danielle Ivory, Harry Hanbury
A member of Congress is seeking to ban one of the nation's most widely-used herbicides, which has turned up in drinking water in some states. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) is for the second time proposing legislation that would outlaw any use or trade of atrazine. Read more »
Documents Detail Banks' Influence on Credit Rating Companies
Photo by Lagan Sebert / Huffington Post Investigative Fund
In the lead up to the financial meltdown, Wall Street firms routinely exerted influence on the nation’s largest credit rating companies— which judge the quality and safety of bonds—and the companies often surrendered to the pressure, a Senate panel has found.
The rating companies, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, regularly awarded generous grades to thousands of mortgage-related investments that later collapsed and precipitated the financial crisis. Investors rely on the raters’ assessments in deciding what to buy and sell. Read more »
The congressionally appointed panel that’s investigating the financial crisis issued its first subpoena Wednesday – to a company we’ve been examining because of its role in the financial crisis.
Moody’s Corp., one of the world’s largest credit rating agencies, has come under fire for awarding rosy ratings to mortgage investments at the center of the financial meltdown. Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, the other top rating agencies, also issued inflated grades to investments that turned out to be toxic. Read more »
Posted: 4:37 pm Apr 21, 2010
Government Overseers, All From Wall Street, Resist Disclosure
Flickr photo by eflon.
After taxpayers rescued American International Group from the brink of collapse, the U.S. government moved to protect its investment by appointing directors and special trustees to oversee the company.
Now the government’s appointees, all hailing from Wall Street or the Federal Reserve, are allowing AIG to withhold key records generated during the company's decline. The documents could decode the murky circumstances leading to the second largest bailout of the financial crisis. Read more »
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