CURRENT EVENTS - DECEMBER
- Thread starter nycfan
- Start date
- Replies: 518
- Views: 9K
- Politics
- Messages
- 33,861
Fox is conflating several issues, but so at Ernst and Project Veritas and the Center for Individual Rights.
Massive $550 million fraud in Biden-era DEI small business scheme | Fox News Video
Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa and Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak join 'Fox & Friends' to weigh in on the alleged fraud and abuse of Biden-era Small Business Administration DEI programs.www.foxnews.com
The $550 million fraud claim is a specific case against Maryland men who were giving kickbacks to a USAID officer to help them secure that value in contracts over many years, on the one hand, and defrauding investors and lenders, OTOH, with all manner of falsified documents. The fraudsters were investigated by the DOJ since 2023, with the first guilty pleas in 2024. The company did deliver contracted services but they were engaged in bid rigging, bribery and self-enrichment. Absolute fraud on their lenders and investors, as well as government bribes and bid rigging to keep contracts coming, and it took the government a while to catch on and put a stop to it.
But the right wing pressure/focus on the 8(a) program is not really about that fraud, it is about dismantle a program that provides access to government contracting opportunities to women and minority owned businesses:
“… The Center for Individual Rights, a conservative public interest organization, and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana in mid-November seeking to “force the repeal of an unconstitutional racial preference regulation that has been incorporated into many federal contract, loan, investment, and grant programs. “
The Small Business Administration send a letter to more than 4,300 8(a) firms seeking 13 different data, ranging from a list of the company’s employees to bank statements for the last three fiscal years to a copy of all 8(a) contracts, as part of its ongoing audit of the program.
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), the chairwoman of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, wrote a letter to 22 agencies yesterday calling on them to “to halt new 8(a) sole-source contract awards.” Ernst’s request comes after she introduced legislation that would suspend all 8(a) sole source contracts until SBA completes its audit.
Each of these on their own would be enough to put the 8(a) program under pressure, but taken altogether, experts say the program is under such an attack that it could mean the end of what many believe has been a successful contracting program.
“The administration has been targeting this program and wanting to shut it down since taking office,” said one former SBA executive, who requested anonymity in order to talk about the program. “They presume it is handouts and a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program.”…”
The SBA’s 8(a) program has been widely considered a success in creating a platform for small women and minority owned businesses to have an opportunity to gain lucrative government contracts that had previously almost all gone to large businesses.
But like all government contracting opportunities, the 8(a) program has always been targeted by bad actors trying to manipulate or defraud their way to lucrative government contracts. There are definitely big contractors who complain they have to share a piece of their contract pie with these small businesses in order to qualify to apply for huge contracts by subcontracting with 8(a) businesses as part of their bid when they would prefer the efficiencies of subcontracting with whomever they choose.
Anyway, I’ve got no objection to an 8(a) program audit to suss out the minority/woman owned small businesses that are really just fronts set up by large contractors creating their own captive 8(a) partners for government contracting opportunities bids, for instance. But the overall thrust here is more about dismantling the opportunities created by this program because DEI = bad.
- Messages
- 33,861
Background on the program from the SBA — it used to have broad bipartisan support until MAGA:
ZenMode
Legend of ZZL
- Messages
- 5,623
"The SBA’s 8(a) program has been widely considered a success in creating a platform for small women and minority owned businesses to have an opportunity to gain lucrative government contracts that had previously almost all gone to large businesses.
That's offensive.
But like all government contracting opportunities, the 8(a) program has always been targeted by bad actors trying to manipulate or defraud their way to lucrative government contracts. There are definitely big contractors who complain they have to share a piece of their contract pie with these small businesses in order to qualify to apply for huge contracts by subcontracting with 8(a) businesses as part of their bid when they would prefer the efficiencies of subcontracting with whomever they choose.
This (fraud) seems to often be the problem when we try to manipulate the free market based on irrelevant characteristics. There are established companies that have proven themselves to be able to perform these services. Just use them. If there is an up and coming business, with years of private sector success that was organically brought into existence, give them a chance.
Many years ago, two former co-workers of mine, neither of which had a single minute of military service, started a technology resale company because the government was required to give 10% (if I recall correctly) of it's technology purchases to veteran owned small businesses. They found some former military guy to be the face of the company, but he did literally nothing. Had no part in decision making, day-to-day operations, etc.
- Messages
- 33,861
“… Trump, 79, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, 69, unveiled a redesign last month billed as a “modernized” overhaul of national parks access with “bold, patriotic” artwork. The Department of Interior also announced “America-first” pricing and new categories of “Resident” and “Nonresident” passes, starting Jan. 1, 2026.…”
www.thedailybeast.com
Trump Plot to Put His Favorite President on National Park Pass Turns Ugly
A conservation group wants to shield nature lovers from the “attention-seeking” president’s headshot on a national park pass.
- Messages
- 33,861
“… Trump, 79, and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, 69, unveiled a redesign last month billed as a “modernized” overhaul of national parks access with “bold, patriotic” artwork. The Department of Interior also announced “America-first” pricing and new categories of “Resident” and “Nonresident” passes, starting Jan. 1, 2026.…”
Trump Plot to Put His Favorite President on National Park Pass Turns Ugly
A conservation group wants to shield nature lovers from the “attention-seeking” president’s headshot on a national park pass.
- Messages
- 4,838
If someone were doing a satire of the corruption and inanity of the US government, this would be seen as too unrealistic to make the movie.
- Messages
- 4,838
Next year is the 20th anniversary of when I was Time's Person of the Year.
- Messages
- 33,861
—> https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chatgpt...2?st=D31S94&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink“… Stein-Erik Soelberg spent months talking to the popular chatbot about how he believed he was being surveilled by a shadowy group—and suspected his 83-year-old mother, Suzanne Eberson Adams, was part of the conspiracy. He posted chats on social media showing ChatGPT supporting the notion that his paranoia was justified and his mother had betrayed him.
In August, the 56-year-old Soelberg killed his mother and then took his own life in the Old Greenwich, Conn., home where they had been living. It appears to be the first documented killing involving a troubled person who was engaging extensively with an AI chatbot.
“I think what OpenAI is doing and what they have done to make the AI remember a conversation can really turn ugly fast,” says Soelberg’s son, Erik, who is speaking out for the first time. “You don’t know how fast that slope is going downhill until a tragedy like the one with my father and grandmother happened.”
Erik says he wants OpenAI to take responsibility for a product he believes deepened his father’s mental decline and led to the tragedy that upended his family four months ago.…”
- Messages
- 33,861
“… Stein-Erik Soelberg spent months talking to the popular chatbot about how he believed he was being surveilled by a shadowy group—and suspected his 83-year-old mother, Suzanne Eberson Adams, was part of the conspiracy. He posted chats on social media showing ChatGPT supporting the notion that his paranoia was justified and his mother had betrayed him.
In August, the 56-year-old Soelberg killed his mother and then took his own life in the Old Greenwich, Conn., home where they had been living. It appears to be the first documented killing involving a troubled person who was engaging extensively with an AI chatbot.
“I think what OpenAI is doing and what they have done to make the AI remember a conversation can really turn ugly fast,” says Soelberg’s son, Erik, who is speaking out for the first time. “You don’t know how fast that slope is going downhill until a tragedy like the one with my father and grandmother happened.”
Erik says he wants OpenAI to take responsibility for a product he believes deepened his father’s mental decline and led to the tragedy that upended his family four months ago.…”
“… Soelberg had had numerous police run-ins in Greenwich—detailed in 72 pages of police reports—that involved public intoxication, harassment and suicide attempts. Erik says other factors, such as alcohol, could have played a role in what happened, but he attributes it mostly to his father’s unhealthy bond with ChatGPT.…”
——
All due respect, it is worth calling out how the chatbot certainly seemed to have reinforced this guy’s delusional thinking but the other details make it hard for me to blame AI for the guy’s behavior.
- Messages
- 33,861
“… The police investigation into the murder-suicide, which concluded last month, detailed signs of a struggle in the Dutch Colonial home in Old Greenwich. Police visited the house after a neighbor called saying she hadn’t heard from her friend in four days. Eberson Adams was found dead in her kitchen, in a pool of blood. She had been injured so badly police couldn’t make a positive identification.“… Soelberg had had numerous police run-ins in Greenwich—detailed in 72 pages of police reports—that involved public intoxication, harassment and suicide attempts. Erik says other factors, such as alcohol, could have played a role in what happened, but he attributes it mostly to his father’s unhealthy bond with ChatGPT.…”
——
All due respect, it is worth calling out how the chatbot certainly seemed to have reinforced this guy’s delusional thinking but the other details make it hard for me to blame AI for the guy’s behavior.
The Connecticut medical examiner determined that her cause of death was blunt injury of head with neck compression….”
The claim here seems to be that the Chatbot was essentially the Overlooked Hotel driving a disturbed suicidal man to be a disturbed homicidal man.
lawtig02
Legend of ZZL
- Messages
- 5,411
Of course there’s not.
tarheelbillie
Esteemed Member
- Messages
- 502
Pretty Boy Pete is looking like a real badass... while the Commander in Chief is napping... maybe dreaming of his
palatial $300,000,000 "dining room" and the thousand chairs to be filled with billionaire asses from around the world. Meanwhile the SOB is demanding that the less fortunate citizens be denied of what little help they get
with health care insurance. Yep, I have a really bad case of
TDS. Hate him like a bad case of poison ivy rash. Got to go...have appointment with my psychiatrist.
To piss on the Left is literally the ONLY reason the Trump admin would do this.
I pray that the next non-MAGA admin to take office will unapologetically RUN UP THE SCORE on these a-holes. No mercy.
LeoBloom
Distinguished Member
- Messages
- 325
The racism IS the point.
- Messages
- 1,401
Your invitation to the George Santos/Anthony Devolder/Kitara Ravache Xmas party - aka, "Santos Claus" - this year 
