My Own Slap Against Corruption
Today, I took a hard stand against corruption. I’m lucky in that the
rules by which I was operating allowed me to easily dismantle the
attempt to steal public health funds for private gain.
As a
federal employee, I am sometimes asked to sit on panels, reviewing
applications for grants and cooperative agreements. There are strict
rules governing this process, including confidentiality. This makes
posting about my triumph today tricky because I have to be vague by law.
The cooperative agreement application I reviewed today was for a pot of
money meant to combat a very real public health threat in a developing
country. The "principal" of this application just happens to be a key
player in the GOP. In fact, this asswipe was arrogant enough to
highlight his political ties in his application. I suppose this GOP
shill thought that subtlely hinting closeness with the White House
would cow us into granting him/her the money. The application did not
even pretend to be seriously combating the public health threat the
money was meant to fight. It was obvious that the money would be used
to make a business case for the applicant to "offer services" to this
developing nation to build an internet infrastructure. The top outcome
of this "project" was to produce "profitable business relationships".
I was enraged when I finished this application. The panels can make it
difficult to grant someone money, but there are ways to bypass the
recommendation of reveiw panels. As a result, I decided to put into
writing, using quotations from the application itself, to make
selection of this project nearly impossible to anyone looking at the
situation. Luckily, everyone at the panel was as shocked as I was at
how bad the application was, and just how bad it "smelled".
This GOP hack will not get the money he/she sought from the CDC. And
while it’s not much, I will sleep better tonight knowing that I have
done my part to prevent another instance of a Bush crony enriching him
or herself at the expense of the American people.
