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Navy Offers $3 Mil Contract for Updating Guantanamo Bowling Alley

This has been the worst week for the stock market since 2008.

The Dow lost 6.4 percent for the week, its biggest drop since the week that ended Oct. 10, 2008, when it fell 18 percent. That was at the height of the financial crisis.

Investors fear a recession or worse. The Administration is out pushing its deficit/jobs plan and telling us there are hard choices to make.

Yesterday, the Navy published a notice seeking a contractor to repair the bowling alley, youth center and Liberty Center at Guantanamo, at a cost of $3 million. (Note, this is not for the detainees, but the military employees.) [More...]

Award of a Task Order under the GTMO Large MACC contract for design build repairs to three activity centers located aboard US Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Work includes 1) Base CLIN 0001 Bowling Center: Replace exterior windows and doors, install new HVAC, remodel restrooms, replace carpeting, replace ceiling grid, tiles and lights, repair interior and exterior walls and pressure wash and repaint. 2) Base CLIN 0002 Youth Center: Repair EIFS and protective coat, replace gutters and downspouts, replace exterior windows and doors, and repair interior. 3) Option CLIN 0003 Liberty Center: Replace exterior windows and doors, install new HVAC, replace carpeting, replace ceiling tiles and lights, repair interior and exterior walls and pressure wash and repaint.

Contract Award Dollar Amount:
$2,937,527.00

And then there's this: A watchdog agency reports that the Government has paid $600 million in benefits to dead people over the past 5 years.

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  • Display: Sort:
    GITMO is a base (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by jimakaPPJ on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 05:38:45 PM EST
    at which the serving personnel cannot leave the base.

    You can argue that GITMO should not exist as a base, but since it does those serving there should not be slighted because it was picked to be a prison for unlawful combatants.

    I spent time there and as well as in Keflavik. Both are in strategic locations for shipping lane protection and sub hunting.

    With no off base liberty on base recreation is important.

    Also (5.00 / 1) (#3)
    by CoralGables on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 06:21:31 PM EST
    This is a family base where upwards to 350 children of military families and civilian employees attend K-12. Due to its nature, it is a community and not just a base and much more is needed than your average military base where children can leave for school and other activities.

    So in one of those extremely rare happenings, I'm in agreement with Jim.

    Parent

    I bowl once a week (none / 0) (#2)
    by jbindc on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 05:48:21 PM EST
    at Ft. Myer in Arlington, VA.  It's subsidized, but civilians can use it too (as it appears many do).

    Games are $2 before 3 pm and $3 from 3-10 pm.  Shoes are $2.  Food is cheap and no tax is imposed.  I can bowl 4 games, rent shoes, and eat dinner for under $20.  

    Parent

    I have a problem with (5.00 / 2) (#6)
    by Jeralyn on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 07:07:38 PM EST
    any more funding for Gitmo, we should be closing it, not renovating it.

    I'm for closing the prison for use (5.00 / 2) (#10)
    by ruffian on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 09:28:46 PM EST
    as it has been for untried detainees, but I'd have to see the arguments for and against closing the base altogether.

    Parent
    especially when we're on the (none / 0) (#7)
    by Jeralyn on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 07:09:19 PM EST
    precipe of another government funding shutdown.

    Priorities, people, and this isn't one of them.

    Parent

    Nostalgia. (none / 0) (#13)
    by lentinel on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 10:35:46 PM EST
    "I don't want to be ambiguous about this. We are going to close Guantanamo and we are going to make sure that the procedures we set up are ones that abide by our constitution..."

    President Obama - January 12, 2009


    Parent

    He was talking of the prison, (none / 0) (#17)
    by Wile ECoyote on Sat Sep 24, 2011 at 04:52:50 AM EST
    not the base.

    Parent
    True. (none / 0) (#20)
    by lentinel on Sat Sep 24, 2011 at 11:28:31 AM EST
    But he closed nothing.

    Parent
    Bowling Alley Petty Cash (5.00 / 1) (#19)
    by MO Blue on Sat Sep 24, 2011 at 09:20:16 AM EST
    D
    efense Secretary Leon Panetta has been predicting doom should his department be forced to make considerable budget cuts, but a GAO report released Friday points out that the Pentagon can't say for certain where all the money it's getting now is really going.

    The Government Accountability Office has been trying to call attention for nearly two decades to the fact that the Department of Defense has been unable to produce auditable financial statements -- in other words, is so big, so complex and so lacking in financial controls that it cannot account for how it spends its funds.

    In testimony submitted to the House Armed Services Committee on Friday, senior GAO official Asif A. Khan pulled no punches, concluding that: "Pervasive deficiencies in financial management processes, systems and controls, and the resulting lack of data reliability continue to impair management's ability to assess the resources needed for DOD operations; track and control costs; ensure basic accountability; anticipate future costs; measure performance; maintain funds control; and reduce the risk of loss from fraud, waste and abuse." link



    They don't know where the money is going (none / 0) (#21)
    by sj on Sat Sep 24, 2011 at 04:13:17 PM EST
    but they know they need more.  Jeez

    Somebody knows where it's going but has managed to remain unaccountable.

    Parent

    Solyndra or (none / 0) (#22)
    by Wile ECoyote on Sat Sep 24, 2011 at 04:58:56 PM EST
    what?

    Parent
    Which decision cost more (5.00 / 1) (#23)
    by MO Blue on Sat Sep 24, 2011 at 08:44:29 PM EST
    Solyndra or Iraq?

    Per members of the Bush Administration:

    The War in iraq will pay for itself

    The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More

    Also to the best of my knowledge no lives were lost by the Solyndra decision.


    Parent

    Plane loads of cash or what? (5.00 / 1) (#24)
    by MO Blue on Sat Sep 24, 2011 at 09:01:29 PM EST
    U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion, sent by the planeload in cash and intended for Iraq's reconstruction after the start of the war. link


    Parent
    I don't have any problem (none / 0) (#4)
    by andgarden on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 06:34:41 PM EST
    with the bowling alley.

    "Soma" would probably (none / 0) (#5)
    by Edger on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 06:37:32 PM EST
    be cheaper, and help take their minds off some of the reasons they are there.


    Nothing wastes money (none / 0) (#8)
    by Slado on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 07:14:33 PM EST
    Like a government construction project.

    Having personally shaken my head at the paperwork, laziness and outright waste required to build a government building nothing surprises me anymore.

    Remember Homers dream car?

    That is the typical result of a government construction project.

    Seriously, my thoughts exactly. (none / 0) (#11)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 09:48:16 PM EST
    All the exterior windows and doors "need" replacing? Really?

    Parent
    Energy efficiency? (none / 0) (#12)
    by oculus on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 10:04:40 PM EST
    Uh, the contract (none / 0) (#18)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Sep 24, 2011 at 08:03:02 AM EST
    is for the recreation center, youth center and library. Given the location, shipping costs, etc., $2.9M doesn't seem that far off.

    Parent
    $600 million? (none / 0) (#9)
    by desertswine on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 08:06:32 PM EST
    Wow!  I wish I was one of those dead people!

    Upholding our core values... (none / 0) (#14)
    by lentinel on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 10:44:29 PM EST
    Promising to return America to the "moral high ground" in the war on terrorism, President Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration, including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.

    During a signing ceremony at the White House, Obama reaffirmed his inauguration pledge that the United States does not have "to continue with a false choice between our safety and our ideals."

    The president said he was issuing the order to close the facility in order to "restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorism."

    January 22, 2009

    On the other hand...

    "It's too late Baby..." (none / 0) (#15)
    by Mr Natural on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 11:02:13 PM EST
    I still like that we keep our famous gulag... (none / 0) (#16)
    by Dadler on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 11:53:16 PM EST
    ...stored away on the shores of Cuba.  Why should Castro have a corner on that market?  We showed him, that rat bast*ard.

    Bring all the gulags home!


    SITE VIOLATOR (none / 0) (#26)
    by jbindc on Mon Sep 26, 2011 at 09:05:30 AM EST