Homeland Security agency spends big on silk plants

[liveoaktx]

http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-5687713.html?part=rss&tag=5687713&subj=news

Looks like there's no room for drabness while fighting the war on terror at the Transportation Security Administration.

The agency, charged with protecting U.S. transportation to a post-9/11 mandate, burned through half-a-million dollars buying silk plants, art and other decorative items for the new Transportations Security Operations Center, according to a scathing letter sent by lawmakers to the head of the TSA.

The splurge on knickknacks for the center--which houses a 42,000-foot fitness center--was slammed in the letter, written by Sens. Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins in response to a report by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general on the facility. Pointing to "endless citations of wasteful spending," the lawmakers took the TSA to task for haphazard decision-making, saying: "That lack of attention extended throughout the project such that TSA still cannot account properly for expended funds."

But the free-handed build-out found a defender in former TSA Deputy Administrator Stephen McHale, who chided the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general in a statement cited by GovExec.com. "Reports such as this discourage risk-taking and innovation and reward plodding bureaucracy, no matter the cost in lost opportunity and increased vulnerability," he reportedly said
...

[Colorado Blue]

1. Yo, we can whack the terrorists upside the head with a silk

plant. In case they get inside the fitness center. Therefore it is NOT a waste of money.

You just have to look at this the right way:)

[Rex]

2. Joe kissed Bush square on the lips - he made a pact with Cheney!

Besides, who wants to fight terrorists without a spa close by?

[Dark]

3. First the rainbow terror alert. Now redecorating.

Homeland security is so gay. . .

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Can someone explain how

splurging on knickknacks enourages risk-taking and innovation??

[Theduckno2]

5. This Administration sent some soldiers to Iraq without body

armor, then took forever to add armor to all the Humvees, but the silk flowers they are on top of!!! Geesh! I read in an LBN yesterday that Bush would veto the recent highway bill because he says it was too expensive! I'll be thinking about those silk flowers when I encounter my next Interstate Pothole! :grr:

[gratuitous]

6. We can't inspect containers coming in from overseas

But by the Christ, those goddam terrorists won't catch us short of silk plants!!

[Hekate]

10. Wouldn't want Osama to catch us with our plants down...

...would we, Fern?

Hekate

[daleo]

7. Someone ordered Salk plants, but got silk plants by mistake.

They wanted vast factories producing Salk polio virus for an anticipated polio bio-terrorism attack (you can't be too careful). Unfortunately, a clerk misread the invoice and shipped silk plants instead. They thought, what they hey, we'll keep 'em. It could have happened to anyone...

[magellan]

8. Yet MORE proof this Republican administration has its head up its a$$

...and its hands in every American's pockets. Not that we needed it. The Republican love of being free with OUR money is evident in everything they do for themselves -- and everything they DON'T do for this country.

$500,000 on art, knick-knacks, silk flowers, and a fitness center for ONE department of government...and an undeserving one at that. And I'll bet our FICA paid for part of it.

Republicans = lying, wasteful thieves

[Daphne08]

9. What a boondoggle!

Our tax money has been squandered in so many wasteful ways since 9/11!

If I weren't so tired right now, I'd scream!

[Hekate]

11. How many of those employees were political appointees?

...As opposed to career civil servants, I mean. Somehow the incredible rush to squander seems so, I don't know, so Bush.

Hekate

[Solly Mack]

12. They're trying to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse

[Festivito]

13. new alert plan: We're at a YELLOW ROSE alert.

Which means caution on listening to upcoming British election hype.

If they display the red snapdragons, we're in big trouble.

[0007]

14. God, I misread the title to read that Homeland Security was

buying silk pants. My first thought was are they gonna have a yellow strip running down the sides.

Would look good on border patrol Minutemen.

[bobthedrummer]

15. Who is the leading nation of silk plant exports?

Torture is pre-approved now.
Talk.
Who did you pay OUR tax money to for silk plants?
:grr: