February 12, 2010 – 9:14AM

They say the US government “has been damaged in the amount of many millions of dollars in funds”.


Brad Davis also claims he witnessed acts of excessive force by company workers in Iraq.


A federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press that federal authorities in Virginia were investigating whether Blackwater had overbilled for its State Department work.

Blackwater or its workers have also faced federal probes for shootings in Iraq and Afghanistan and accusations of arms smuggling.


An audit released last year found that the State Department could have been able to recover $55 million from Blackwater because the company didn’t provide the personnel necessary to fulfill its contract during the months examined in 2006 and 2007.


A spokesman for Blackwater, which has since changed its name to Xe, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.


The company is based in Moyock, North Carolina.


The latest lawsuit was filed in 2008 in the eastern district of Virginia and recently unsealed after the Justice Department declined to join the case.


It provides more specific allegations by the Davises, a married couple.


Melan Davis, who said she handled some record-keeping and billing roles at Blackwater, said in a signed court statement that she found that a prostitute in Afghanistan had been placed on Blackwater’s payroll under the “Morale Welfare Recreation” category.


Davis, who was fired from the company and is challenging her dismissal, said she also helped with record-keeping for Blackwater’s response in Louisiana to Hurricane Katrina.


Among other charges of excessive billing there, Davis said two workers paid a vendor for “cleaning services” but the vendor would instead provide strippers.


Brad Davis says in the court filing he witnessed three instances in 2005 in which company workers used excessive force in Iraq.

He said the contractors involved in the shootings used unjustified force to “kill or seriously injure innocent Iraqi civilians”, but that the company did not stop to see whether the targets of the shootings were alive or injured.

“Officers break laws to keep law and order,” announced the headline of Harding’s February 3 “On the Beat” column. Harding explained that because “[t]hose who serve in law enforcement occupy a special niche in society,” they sometimes “have to break the very laws they are sworn to uphold.”




This means, for instance, “officers buy drugs to arrest sellers (which would be an illegal act for a citizen).” Note carefully how Harding distinguishes between “citizens” — those subject to laws — and “officers” — those invested with the privilege of violating laws as they deem necessary.


“On assault calls, officers often have to commit assaults, themselves, to make the offenders stop and take them into custody,” Harding continues.


Were he sufficiently honest, Harding would have admitted that a mere “citizen” who so much as touches a member of the consecrated coercive caste will be charged with “assaulting a police officer,” yet uniformed tax-feeders can often beat, electrocute, and even murder “citizens” with impunity.


Hardin might also have mentioned that police in economically distressed cities are increasingly becoming armed robbers, stealing money and property at gunpoint in the name of “asset forfeiture.” Perhaps he could have soothingly instructed his readers that it is a privilege for mere citizens to be plundered for the benefit of the Exalted Corps of Public Guardians.


“We have taken upon ourselves a sacred trust to protect and to serve you, the public,” writes Harding in words that ooze condescension. “Any officer who violates this trust will not last in this profession.”


Quite the contrary is true: The unionized Brotherhood in Blue, in collusion with the other elements of the state’s punitive priesthood, will do whatever it can to insulate officers from accountability for violating the public’s misplaced trust in them. It is when an officer violates the “trust” of the tax-consuming class that he is most likely to get in trouble.


Harding concludes his totalitarian homily with admonishing mere citizens to know their proper place, which is on their knees tugging their forelocks in abject gratitude to their sacred protector-overlords in blue:


“Instead of judging [the heroic agents of government violence] and jumping to conclusions, we owe it to them and to our children to give voice to a positive opinion: `They must be watching for someone, be after somebody, or be en route to a call.’”

“The bottom line is summed up by a saying from Winston Churchill: `We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men (and women) stand ready to visit violence on those who would do us harm,’” insists Harding, who mis-attributes that familiar authoritarian apothegm (it was supposedly coined by George Orwell, rather than the execrable Churchill).


The chastened servility demanded by Harding brings to mind a recent edict issued by a government-run school in Huangping, China: All students were instructed to “salute every passing car on you way to and from school,” supposedly as a safety measure but actually as a way of paying homage to local commissars.


To their considerable credit, this policy provoked not only widespread disobedience but a barrage of ridicule from the local public. It’s a pity that most residents of Lee Greenwood’s Amerika aren’t as contemptuous of “authority” as the typical residents of “Red” China.

But nearly two-thirds of those polled saythey know just some, very little or nothing about what the tea partymovement stands for. About one in eight says they know “a great deal”about the positions of tea party groups, but the lack of informationdoes not erase the appeal: About 45 percent of all Americans say theyagree at least somewhat with tea partiers on issues, includingmajorities of Republicans and independents.
….
The newpoll shows Republicans divided about the tea party movement, whichthreatens to cause a rift in the lead-up to November’s midtermelections. Two-thirds of those calling themselves “strong Republicans”view the movement favorably, compared with 33 percent among “not verystrong Republicans.”
Overall opinion is about evenly split, with35 percent of all Americans holding favorable views of the movement and40 percent unfavorable ones. A quarter expressed no opinion. Nearly sixin 10 Democrats have unfavorable views, while independents are split,39 percent positive and 40 percent negative.