USTAR II Thank you Utah Legislative Auditor General for Your Audit Reports about USTAR … a Cornucopia of Corruption!

(Recap  USTAR Part – I)

“Available Utah Goodfellas Rule the Day!”

Utah Auditors … please sharpen your pencils, put on your green eyeshades and check out the following to …

1. 1. 1. Ensure that after the passage of S.B. 212 “USTAR Amendments” there is no shifting, laundering or “nippering” of funds going on.  It appears that said funds now pass to The Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED).  An example and use of the term  “Nippering” can be found here, “Exclusive: The Pentagon’s Massive Accounting Fraud Exposed.”
      2. Ensure that GOED’s books aren’t being cooked.
      3. Ensure that Mitt Romney or Michael Leavitt didn’t get their mitts on … and  Carly Firoina didn’t get her clutches around … any honoraria seeping out of GOED’s access to its newly found largess.

From Utah’s Legislative Auditor General’s reports and the Media …

… we have gleaned enough information about inappropriate and/or shameful and/or fraudulent and/or corrupt conduct to keep us blogging for decades.  For starters, we list several sources  “UTA, USTAR, DABC, Utah Dairy, LPP, GOED, Utah MEDICAID, UCA, URS, and ULCT and others.

We suspect that most audit reports are like a majority of Doctoral Dissertations … worthless, dust sucking, space robbing tomes found mouldering in the bowels of dark, dank archives.

In stark contrast to the above, Utah Legislative Auditor General’s Reports and Media’s Exposés regarding “UTA, USTAR, DABC, Utah Dairy, LPP, GOED, Utah MEDICAID, UCA, URS, and ULCT and others are still valuable reservoirs of stories.  We’ll dust them off a bit and turn the heat up on our Utah Goodfellas.

In the following pages we’ll tell a simple story about how important experience and common sense are to discovering the truth and evidence of bad conduct.  We’ll speak to how remaining USTAR funds, from our good sense, observation and belief have been Shifted, Laundered and Nippered and may already be cooking in the books.

We complain that vicious corporate raider and Corrupt Bush son Mitt Romney along with the failed and fired Hewlett Packard CEO and political hack Carly Fiorina were invited to speak in Utah.  Really now, how many real Utahns, other than Utah’s Goodfellas who delight in celebrating self while holding summits for one another,  give a whit about hearing more from Mitt or anything at all from Carly?

We question the source of their honoraria.  We challenge Utah’s auditors to follow USTAR’s shifting, nippered funds making certain that their original intent and purpose is intact and in force.

We are delighted that S.B. 212 “USTAR Amendments” has dissolved the failed USTAR Governing Authority … a good thing.  However, we anticipate a lack of sufficient oversight, checks and balances … a bad thing.  USTAR’s funds seem to have been nippered and shifted to the Governor’s Office of Economic Development where their original purpose … purpose of Economic Stimulus and Utah Taxpayer funds … will most likely be obfuscated.

We suggest that citizens reading and thinking at adult levels don’t need to be told that some human conduct is inappropriate or shameful.  It’s as plain as the noses on our faces. 

With but a sniff of the whiff of a wind that blows the proof of shameful conduct our way, we’ll winnow out the facts regarding USTAR and Utah’s Goodfellas.  With the simple good senses God gave us, our proof need not rise to beyond a reasonable doubt.  

Going beyond what we at The Ole’ Buzzard’s blog can accomplish with our readers, we hope that Utah auditors have in place a process and mechanism for referring their suspicions, conclusions and work product to the Utah Attorney General and his Agents.  If not, why not?  Probably not!

Likewise, we surmise that the same applies to The United States Attorney who uses agents that work for the FBI.   If not, why not?  Probably not!

If sharing information and evidence among agencies were in fact the case, where are the results?

Or inversely, we would hope that the Utah Attorney General’s Agents and FBI Agents are actively pursuing leads plumbed by them out of our auditor’s reports.  If not, why not? Probably not!

Could Utah’s Attorney General “Rap’n Rambo” Sean Reyes, already caught on the take from Energy Solutions to the tune of $47,500.00, be relied on to get after Utah’s Goodfellas? Probably not!  For a peek at that shameful ledger, Go here please. 

Could Utah’s United States Attorney “The Cleaner” John Huber be relied on to get after Utah Goodfellas?  Probably not!  Huber is not the solution.   He has a peculiar penchant for issuing non-prosecution agreements … and is the problem.  Go here please.

Don’t forget that in Utah, “Tis’ vile to rob a henroost of a hen, but thieving largely makes us gentlemen!”

In order to emphasize the viability and credibility of experience, reason, common sense and the senses, we interrupt briefly with a story.

Our experience, observation and good sense tell us that USTAR’s books have been cooked and the funds have been Shifted, Laundered and Nippered.

The truth is often fiction’s twin.  We’ll “spin a yarn” here as a way to continue a conversation about exposing the corrupt Utah, quasi governmental entity called USTAR.  

Sam Clemens (Mark Twain) once said that a story isn’t half good until it’s “stretched a bit.”  So here we go with but a wee bit of stretching.

Snooping, Stinking, Quacking, Rumbling & Roaring

On the day the great Big Boy 4014 steam locomotive passed through our community, I was walking up the street toward the tracks to witness it first hand. 

On the way, the hairs in my nose and ears began “twitching” and “curling” from an all too familiar stink … skunk stink.  Thankfully, that ole’ “Wood Pussy” was far enough afield to pose no immediate threat.  Although I never saw him, my nose told me he was there. 

A few more steps took me nearer to our neighbor’s pond where a nesting pair of Mallard Ducks were incessantly “quacking” away.  Although they were hidden in the weeds, the sound was unmistakably a duck’s quacking staccato. 

My journey then took me near a point where the path crossed the railroad tracks and that ole’ Big Boy 4014 would soon come huffing, puffing, clattering and clanking to traverse, intercept and intersect the spot I would soon be standing on. 

I stopped for a moment in the middle of that intersection of track and path.  I closed my eyes wondering if I could actually feel Big Boy rumbling and roaring before seeing him. Well … much to my surprise with eyes closed and senses enlarged and enlivened (imagined?) the Earth began to roll and shake. 

I wondered just how long I could stand there without opening my eyes when … yes … you guessed it … a tooting and a wailing ensued disrupting my reverie.  That old huffer, announcing its eminence and power, suddenly turned my dream into a panic attack.  Wide eyed and spooked, I left that spot with a leap and a bound!

While Sniffing around USTAR and right in our faces there’s a Stinking that sets the hairs in our noses and ears to Twitching and Curling, there’s an incessant Quacking and the Earth begins Rolling and Shaking synced to some Rumbling and Roaring, that’s probably a clue!  Our senses have quite suddenly and naturally apprehended inappropriate, shameful, corrupt and/or fraudulent conduct. 

It doesn’t take an Einstein with a lifetime as a Special Agent, a Masters Degree in Criminal Justice or another career in Army Special Operations Intelligence to recognize clues!

When we catch USTAR, pants down and acting “Inappropriately, Shamefully, Fraudulently, Corruptly and/or Unlawfully” with their butts hanging out, that’s a clue.

In-as-much-as USTAR still operates with gusto, we ask where’s the money coming from?  All-the-while with USTAR’s Governing Authority dissolved, they are still publicizing and pushing an aggressive agenda. Sorry, the following site is DEAD/NADA.   See  https://ustar.org/news-and-events

Their attitude seems to be, “In your face you citizens! We’re the GOED’s Goodfellas!”  For example, USTAR preened and postured  while serving Mitt Romney with a juicy summit.  They’ve pumped up his image and a good ole’ Goodfealla’s campaign kitty before the election.  He’s the Utah Goodfellas’ and USTAR’s boy!  

We hear Romney’s fees are around $50,000 a pop.  Could the following media report be a clue to inappropriate, shameful, corrupt and/or fraudulent conduct?   “Campaign rivals cry foul after state agency invites Mitt Romney to speak at its tech summit” See also “MITT ROMNEY: JUST ANOTHER CORRUPT BUSH SON.” 

And we ask, “Just how many Utah citizens care one whit about who Carly Fiorina is?”  Yep … we’re sniffing some clues that are intimating the source of her $50,000 honorarium for headlining Utah’s most recent Economic Summit.  Oh the Goodfellas may be screaming “stupid” at us for not knowing the difference between “Economic Summit” and “Technology Summit”!  Sure we do and we also know a thing or two about “cooking, laundering, and nippering” the books that we’re sharing here.  

So … let’s add another clue to the stew or anomaly found here about honoraria or speaker’s fees as they are also called.

Again, Utah’s 2018 Technology Summit and “Campaign rivals cry foul after state agency invites Mitt Romney to speak at its tech summit.” From USA Today we learn that “Mitt Romney earned more than $362,000 in speaking fees” over the course of a year.  Auditors … please check to ensure that the money to pay Romney and others their honoraria is not co-mingled with sponsors’ donations, other donations, gate receipts and largess from USTAR funds.   There’s an interesting confluence here between Mitt’s campaign and his primacy at the restricted USTAR event called a “Summit.”

Why wasn’t Democrat Jenny Wilson invited as a headliner?  She was a citizen, taxpayer and major candidate!

Utah’s 2019 Economic Summit features a long list of luminaries and Carly Fiorina whose speaker fees as advertised by “Speaker Booking Agency” are $50,000 to $100,000.  Auditors … please check to ensure that the money to pay Fiorina and others their honoraria is not co-mingled with sponsors’ donations, other donations, gate receipts and largess from any of the State’s most recent capture of GOED’s USTAR funds …  or any other Taxpayer funds for that matter.  We see that The Utah Department of Workforce Services was a sponsor.

Utah’s 2019 Technology Summit features a long list of luminaries and Governor Michael Leavitt whose speaker fees as advertised by “Speaker Booking Agency” are $50,000 to $100,000.  Auditors … please check to ensure that the money to pay Leavitt and others their honoraria is not co-mingled with sponsors donations, other donations, gate receipts and largess from GOED’s most recent capture of USTAR funds.  Oh my, oh my how we bet that an honoree or two could tell us where more USTAR skeletons are stashed.

We’ll talk a bit more about the source of funds but in the meantime we are still scratching our heads over why failed and fired Hewlett Packard executive and oftimes failed political re-runner Fiorina was invited to Utah to speak?  Is she related to Governor Available Jones Herbert?  Now that we suspect the Governor’s Office of Economic Development has their hooks on USTAR’s cash kitty, can we expect much more “stuff” just as strange and crazy as Carly to happen.  Auditors, will you please check this out?

Triage It!

Classic Triage: …  “The assignment of degrees of urgency to wounds or illnesses to decide the order of treatment of a large number of patients or casualties.” Example of priorities to treat first … Profuse Bleeding; Shallow, Labored or no Breathing; and Shock.

USTAR Triage: … We will spring into action … If while snooping USTAR, it smells shameful, that’s probably a clue.  If what we’re hearing about USTAR sounds inappropriate, that’s probably a clue.  If we’re about to be run over by a USTAR fraud, that’s also a clue. 

Simple steps to triage USTAR: … We’ll uncover the clues and anomalies … we’ll sharpen a pencil or two … we’ll put on our classy green eyeshades … and hope to indict quite few … yet … referring our cases to “Justice” … is something we fear might not work …  but publishing more “tough” audit records … shows what we are doing is of worth …   we’ll take no bad Goodfellas prisoner … we’ll be bold as we work to uphold … the rule of our laws and good governance … as this story forever unfolds.  (Damn! We had such great fun with this little bit of doggerel.)

So where were you United States Attorney Huber and Utah Attorney General Reyes  in all of this?  Did y’all sneak yourselves and your agents out to lunch when USTAR came rocking, rolling and rumbling down the tracks … load of fraud in trail?  You’re “busted!” Caught you leaping off track to avoid the political blowback and roadkill. 

(USTAR – Part I Review)

From the Tribune of 3/8/2017

1. 1. Audit $334 million … USTAR effort inflated jobs, revenue, exaggerated by thousands the number of jobs it has created … inflated by millions the amount of money it has brought in.
   2. … more of just a glitzy way to fund University of Utah and Utah State University research.
   3. The problems stem from a “complete lack of management,” said House Speaker Becky Lockhart, R- Provo.
   4. … said it had created 3,380 jobs, but about 60 percent of those no longer existed.

From the Utah Legislative Auditor General’s Report

1. 1. Auditor “speak” … “We found that USTAR’s reported return on investment (ROI) was inaccurate and flawed.”
   2. As translated by The Ole’ Buzzard … False and misleading information was provided to the auditors.  We allege that such leads to an artifice, design, and scheme to defraud taxpayers.  Clues!
   3. Auditor “speak” … “Jobs created were also inflated ….”
   4. As translated by the Ole’ Buzzard … Ghost employees are significant indicators of substantial fraud.  Clues!

Total state and federal dollars invested in USTAR through fiscal year 2014 was approximately $334 million.  We believe items 1 and 3 above serve to demonstrate that USTAR’s claims of statistical accomplishments were lies, fabrications, artifice, designs and schemes to defraud.

Utah’s Recovery Act website scored 0 out of 100 possible points.

“The state failed to earn any points by neglecting to disclose program allocations, any kind of geographic distribution of Recovery Act funds, how those funds were distributed with regard to economic distress indicators, or report any job creation data. Contractor information: none.”

Shell Games, Lies, Failure to Disclose, Nippering  … all  are in the least Shameful!

Thanks to S.B. 212 “USTAR Amendments” among many other things, Governor Available Jones‘ Office of Economic Development (GOED) may have the keys to what remains of USTAR’s cash kitty.  A shell game here?

Our experience, observation and good sense tells us that USTAR’s books have been or will be cooked and the funds have been or will be Shifted, Laundered and Nippered.

We pine for a sitting Grand Jury.  We yearn for the authority to issue subpoenas to compel testimony.  We “itch” for the authority to issue search warrants and seize documents.  We crave to craft the information persuasive to indict a solid representative number of USTAR’s Goodfellas and thereafter send them off to jail where they belong.

In USTAR-III …

… we’ll continue squeezing this sour lemon until it’s dry.  We’ll open  “Pandora’s Box” and take a peek into sleazy “Ops” and dark corners.  We’ll identify an “outed,” senior CIA operative burrowed deeply into the middle of Utah State University’s “Tech Tank.” We’ll ask why a Utah State University/USTAR executive suddenly jumped ship. We’ll tell stories about a most wonderful technology that is being hijacked by federal litigation. We’ll expose two compromised and conflicted Federal Judges who were endorsed by “Opioid” Orrin Hatch.

The tasks at hand and objectives are to help reverse the following trends!