House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

The hurry to take advantage of funds appropriated through the Recovery Act for “shovel ready” projects impelled the federal agencies – especially the Department of Energy – to hastily allocate the money, and as a result taxpayer money flowed to projects marred by fraud, corruption, poor workmanship, failing companies, and crony corporate socialism.

And now DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman has discovered the rush to distribute stimulus money may have compromised national security. In an audit report of the department’s management of the Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, which received $3.5 billion to modernize and improve the reliability of the U.S. power grid, the IG found that grant recipients’ plans to prevent “malicious cyber attacks” were often inadequate.

Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) received up to six sweetheart home loans from Countrywide Financial, even though he has only publicly admitted to accepting two special deals, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The revelations were brought to light by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, raising questions about a previous Senate ethics committee investigation into Dodd’s dealings with Countrywide that just disclosed information about two of the loans.

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, deservedly has received enormous amounts of bad press over the past couple years. The New Orleans-based nonprofit network of radical activists, with hundreds of affiliates in more than 40 states, has been at the center of investigations into voter registration fraud, unauthorized use of taxpayer funds for lobbying and other forms of partisan politics, phony tax filings, and an embezzlement scandal that cost its founder and chief organizer his job a little over a year ago.