The Minerals Management Service: Skeet Shooting, Pencils And Porn

Thanks for finally putting some attention on this.
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But really — one of the inspectors admits to taking bribes in the form of crystal meth, and moreover, is alleged to have been high on crystal meth during an inspection, and that doesn’t merit a mention?

The report does mention an inspector taking meth, but it says nothing about bribing with meth. It says the inspector never used meth at work, but might have still had some in his system from the night before. I didn’t put it in the summary above because it was so much less damning than some of the other details.

More porn watching by our great Government workers who are protected by the Government Workers AFL-CIO backed Union, AFGE. Not only do they fail to do their jobs, they are then backed by the union thugs in order to protect their jobs.
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This is the inherent problem with Unions. Allowing incompetent workers to continue in their jobs.
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I will imagine Obama will do a complete and thorough investigation into all of this, yes?
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“Unions….we do more harm than good”

Thanks for the correction. I must’ve remembered it wrong.
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Initial reports suggested the inspector was doing meth on the job, not the night before, but that’s not borne out in the report?

Do you have evidence that the union protected these incompetent employees? Anything at all?

I will imagine Obama will do a complete and thorough investigation into all of this, yes?
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You don’t have to imagine, because the investigation resulta were just made public. By Obama’s Interior Secretary. Which is where we got all these details.

It’s interesting that our resident rightist is more concerned about porn and unions than she/he is about the merging of corporations and government.

“The technical term is ‘regulatory capture.’ It happens when industry interests overtake the broader public interest in federal agencies charged with protecting the nation.”

MS, what’s it called when they’ve captured congress, the WH, and MSM? What’s it called when they’re working together with The Nature Consevancy to advance environmental protection? What’s it called when the SCOTUS says they have “personhood”?

what’s it called when they’ve captured congress, the WH, and MSM?

Ownership.
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What’s it called when the SCOTUS says they have “personhood”?

A bad joke upon all of us.
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This has been another episode of easy answers to simple questions.

“Predictably, the IG also found numerous instances of inspectors using their government email to pass around pornography”
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PREDICTABLY??? So all government employees view porn on company equipment? Mighty big leap there….

There must be a water cooler full of Kool-Aid where Rust-eze works. Unionization, if it contributed to this situation at all, does not protect employees from this kind of wrongdoing. It’s a myth.

Kevin,
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You are naive if you don’t know that unions protect incompetent union members.
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That’s one of their main jobs.
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I asked my son who is a school principal this last weekend, if he had to let one teacher go because of budgetary problems who would be the one to go.
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1. A young second year teacher who is a great teacher or.
2. An older teacher who really performs very poorly as a teacher.

He did not hesitate for one second. He said the young teacher would be let go. Job retainment per union contract was strictly based upon seniority. Performance is not allowed to be a factor unless the teacher does something criminal.

Kevin I said you were naive if you did not already know this information. This is the way it is in nearly every union situation. That’s the real world.
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I can’t believe you didn’t know that already.

During the W years I remember so many testimonies from Bush appointees that exposed the corrupt appointment of political cronies who in turn filled positions in departments with more cronies. The congress failed to follow through. Just the Justice Department was a sick joke.
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Where was the traditional media reporting these facts.
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I am in a Madame DeFarge mood. I have picked up my knitting and want to yell “off with their heads”! Or was that the Red Queen? In any case, “off with their heads”!

Never forget 11 people lost their lives in the rig explosion. Never forget those that lost their lives in mining explosions. Never forget the 100,000s who have lost their lives in unnecessary war. All of these events and others could have been prevented by our government and an alert media.

And those who died after the levees broke after Huricane Katrina, and those who died because the top of the government was indifferent to the threat from terrorism.

@3xfire3: You do realize you’re talking about a particular state’s Teacher’s union, right?
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Do you even know that there are differences between unions?
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@Michael Scherer: Thanks for pointing out that these lapses all happened under W’s watch. I would never hear the end of it from my family if they happened under Obama’s watch.
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The fact that they happened under W’s means I won’t hear a peep about it, though. Sigh.
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Also, did any of the people involved in all of these ethical violations get fired? Other that the guy who went to jail, that is.

Thanks for the reminder Elvis. We have to remember the warnings coming from the New Orleans paper that were ignored by government and the media about the state of the levies. These warnings were long before the hurricane.

Local teachers unions are not the same as AFSCME.
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Provide evidence that AFSCME defended grossly incompetent MMS workers.

Indeed, it was the Army Corps of Engineers who made the hash of the levees and barrier islands that caused the problems in New Orleans. The city got through the hurricane with minimal problems.

The guy who did meth — was he protected by the union?
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The guy who let industry officials write their own reports — was he protected by the union?
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The guys who violated ethics rules by accepting Peach Bowl tickets — were they protected by the union?
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I know you all believe all unions are bad, but do us a favor and provide some actual facts about the unions and MMS if that’s the charge you want to levy, and not provide totally irrelevant anecdotes about teachers’ unions.

MS, thanks for this post. I heard a mention of the report on NPR and appreciate your pointing out when the behavior mentioned took place rather than leaving it vague as has been done in some other places.

Shocked — SHOCKED — to read this.

“You are naive if you don’t know that unions protect incompetent union members.”
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Let’s look inside a business publication like Businessweek for that.
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“Anti-Union is Bad for Business…[U]nions typically boost rather than hurt business productivity. Unionized firms are able to exercise greater selectivity in hiring, so they end up with a higher-quality workforce. Higher wages translate into lower turnover, which means less waste in recruiting, selecting, and training people to replace departed workers. Lower turnover, in turn, makes it economically rational for a firm to invest in worker training, which makes the workforce more productive. Additionally, the presence of unions encourages firms to implement the kinds of high-performance work systems found in many of America’s most competitive companies.

Many in the business community are not blind to these benefits, but they still fear that more robust unions will cut into profits and thereby slow down investment and growth. This concern, as far as empirical research can tell, is simply misplaced. Within the U.S., there is no correlation between unionization and the probability of a firm’s failure, and looking around the world, there is no correlation between the extent of unionization and aggregate rates of growth. ”
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http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/jun2009/ca20090623_995100.htm
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So, I wonder if small business owners are in sync with 3X or not.
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“Some 80 percent of the small business owners and self-employed individuals surveyed agreed that “strong unions make the free market system stronger.” A significant majority—54 percent—strongly agreed.”
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http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/05/18/survey-small-business-owners-say-unions-good-for-business/
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So, it would appear that 3xfire3 has a minority and rare point of view.
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Maybe 3xfire3 is naive enough to believe in bad news sources and ignore what is now common knowledge: unions improve productivity and the Bush Administration picked buddies of the industries being regulated to castrate the agencies and help his oil buddies cut corners left and right.

The technical term “Goldman Sachs.”

It’s almost as if lack of strong regulatory oversight has contributed to problems in this industry.

Of course, I wouldn’t want to criticize the oil companies — that would be unAmerican.

It’s interesting that 3x seems completely oblivious to the fact that if Unions didn’t defend seniority, then nothing would prevent employers from routinely laying off older workers in favor of younger cheaper ones.

Paul, nice reminder. I worked for many years as a supervisor and was terminated at age 61. No union.
California is a fire at will state. Many older workers lost their jobs because the company was for sale and they wanted to show there expenses as low as possible. Older, long term employess higher salaries, cost of health insurance higher. I talked to a lawyer about suing, He thought I had a good case. Decided I didn’t want the hassle.
People forget that unions got laws passed making child labor illegal. They brought us health benefits, paid vacations and holidays, overtime for non-exempt workers, safety rules, etc. The right thinks that we would never return to sweat shops. Tell that to the workers in the Mariannas.

Glad that MS has put out a piece on this. Let us leave out the party in power when this happened. Over time relations between industry and its overseers in govt have become cosy. For example one sees, time and again. people leaving the Defense Dept and going to, say, Boeing. This is a problem throughout our government.

During the Iraq war we had a string of generals pitching for the war without the station telling us that the fellow on tv was working for a company that was supplying goods and services to the DOD.

This contagion affects the whole federal and state structure. These fellows in oil have been caught out.

The other matter is the political appointee a la Liz Cheney. One finds party supporters in high positions throughout our government, which suggests that political interference is also a problem.

And then there are the ambassadors who occupy some of the most impostant posts in Europe and Asia: campaign contributors.

The system is wide open to corruption.

You all are joking right?
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Citing an AFL/CIO blog site for your justifications and polls, patricksartor? You are indeed the joke.
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I have the evidence and the data to back it all up, but why bother with the likes of kevin and sartor. It is not worth my time. Look it up yourselves, or are you too lazy to do it and your “Union” protects you from using google?

“Unions – from the people that brought you ‘The Weekend’.”

“Look it up yourselves, or are you too lazy to do it and your “Union” protects you from using google?”
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No, rusty, we, as charitable liberals help the mentally challenged such as yourself.
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It is clear that using those keys and that mouse are so hard for you that you just, instead, take right wing sources and throw them at us.
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The AFL-CIO may have commissioned the study to find out about it’s public relations and, I would have guessed, if it had been badly unfavorable would not have released them just as conservatives do not release bad polling results if they paid for the poll.
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However, the results are there.
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Read em weep.