Before getting too excited about the Special Counsel report alleging that Lurita Doan violated the Hatch act when she brought party politics into the General Services Administration, remember the crying Indian in that old Simpsons episode (season 9, Trash of the Titans). If that one cheetos wrapper gets the OSC worked up then maybe we should warn him before he turns around.
***
Yeah, the pop culture reference was pretty arcane. This post was written for readers who know about that bonus track at the end of Nirvana’s first album Nevermind (yeh, call me a cultural illiterate). Which is to say people within about five years of my own age.
***Update***
The Washington Post found another cheetos wrapper to make OSC cry. This time it involves shenaigans at the Navy to sidestep rules intended to ensure competitive bidding for major contracts.
Mithras
This post was written for readers who know about that bonus track at the end of Nirvana’s first album.
Bonus or throwaway? When it comes on, I always hit stop on my … cd player. I guess I am in your cohort.
Nick
I guess I probably should be in that group, but I was never a big Nirvana fan…
demimondian
I think that Weird Al has the best take on Nirvana:
It’s hard to argle margle growf //
With all these marbles in your mouth
joshua
There’s a bonus track at the end of Bleach?
PotVsKtl
Yeah, there is no bonus track on Nirvana’s first album.
Keith
You mean “Within You, Without You” at the end of Nevermind (done with ‘pre-gapping’)? I don’t know why that name rings a bell (I’m not bothering to Wiki it), but I don’t see the reference in your post at all.
Keith
Ugh! That was a George Harrison song off Sgt Pepper. I mean “Endless, Nameless” (hopefully I’m right this time…I’m trying to resist the urge to fall back on Wiki)
Zombie Santa Claus
That’s not only their first album, it’s probably their best album.
He’s talking about the Simpsons episode where Homer becomes the head of Springfield’s garbage department, right? And he fucks up, so he starts hiding the garbage under the town to cut costs, until the whole town becomes a landfill and they all have to move. That episode, yes?
Cyrus
Heh, yeah, I probably never would have found out about the hidden track if not for Weird Al.
The Other Steve
I gotta get me one of them jobs.
George, if you’re listening… I have a small consulting firm and for only $2.5 million, I can do the R&D on a string of floating rubber barriers!
The fact that they look like yellow rubber duckies, is by design, to confuse the enemy!
Tim F.
Yep. The town fills up Springfield gorge with garbage and then moves five miles down the road to get away from it. While they’re moving, somebody tosses an empty potato chip bag and a lone indian sheds a tear while it blows along the ground. Then the camera pans to Springfield Gorge and the you hear the indian scream in agony.
That pretty well describes how the OSC must be feeling right about now.
The Other Steve
BTW, this bullshit of no-bid contracts to favored vendors. It’s how business works.
Last company i was at, the CTO bid out the contract for QA consultants to his next door neighbor. The guy is fabulously wealthy now, because it was a sure thing. didn’t have to hire sales or any other overhead.
But he billed us at $90/hour and paid $30 an hour to the guys he brought in. Considering at one point he had 40 consultants in there. That’s not a bad cash flow.
Zifnab
And in private industry, where your money is your money, you have every right to pay your next door neighbor whatever he wants to charge you. That’s an internal business matter, and if the CTO’s boss doesn’t know or doesn’t care, the CTO can give the contract to whomever he wants.
That said, the US Government is not a private industry. We have all this beaurocracy to find the lowest bidder/best deal because the public treasury is for the public good, not the good of the Treasure Department’s next door neighbor.
The goal is to minimize this level of corruption and graft, not shrug, smile, and say “We know this happens.”
Tulkinghorn
Yeah, and you don’t think the CTO did not get a 10% kickback from the vendor/next door neighbor? That’s how business really works in all too many cases.
It is not a model for public administration.
Zombie Santa Claus
Thank God the grown-ups are in charge!
(On a side note, I’ve always hated the Hatch Act. For ages, the Republicans thumped their chest about it, and fired government employees who wrote letters to the editor and things like that. Now the shoe is on the other foot, and the schadenfreude fills the air like pollen at flower-fucking time.)