14 Phanton Zip Codes receive "Stimulus" money

Zander

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Sep 10, 2009
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First we had the bogus 15th Congressional District in Arizona, now this.....pathetic.
Phantom zip codes also found in Virginia | Washington Examiner

Phantom zip codes also found in Virginia
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
01/06/10 10:40 AM EST

As much as $9.5 million in federal stimulus dollars went to 14 zip codes in Virginia that don’t exist or are in other states, Old Dominion Watchdog (Old Dominion Watchdog) reports. The fake zip codes were listed on Recovery.gov, the federal Web site that is supposed to track how the stimulus money is being used.

The phony zip codes are a new wrinkle in Recovery.gov’s increasingly tattered credibility. In November, Ed Pound, director of communications for the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said a rash of phantom congressional districts found on the website were the result of confusion by fund recipients, who apparently didn’t know who their congressman was.

But who would give millions of dollars to somebody who doesn’t even know their own zip code?
These same morons now want to control your healthcare.....:cuckoo:
 
The newspaper was formerly distributed only in the suburbs of Washington, under the titles of Montgomery Journal, Prince George's Journal, and Northern Virginia Journal. Their parent company, Journal Newspapers Inc., was purchased by conservative benefactor Philip Anschutz in October 2004. On February 1, 2005, the paper's name changed to the Washington Examiner, and it adopted a logo and format similar to that of another newspaper owned by Anschutz, the San Francisco Examiner.[1] The Examiner's parent company, Clarity Media Group, also owns the conservative opinion magazine, The Weekly Standard.

The Washington Examiner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
The newspaper was formerly distributed only in the suburbs of Washington, under the titles of Montgomery Journal, Prince George's Journal, and Northern Virginia Journal. Their parent company, Journal Newspapers Inc., was purchased by conservative benefactor Philip Anschutz in October 2004. On February 1, 2005, the paper's name changed to the Washington Examiner, and it adopted a logo and format similar to that of another newspaper owned by Anschutz, the San Francisco Examiner.[1] The Examiner's parent company, Clarity Media Group, also owns the conservative opinion magazine, The Weekly Standard.

The Washington Examiner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Would you accept CBS News as a source?

Did "Phantom" Districts Get Stimulus Cash? - CBS News

Story goes back to mid November...
 
The newspaper was formerly distributed only in the suburbs of Washington, under the titles of Montgomery Journal, Prince George's Journal, and Northern Virginia Journal. Their parent company, Journal Newspapers Inc., was purchased by conservative benefactor Philip Anschutz in October 2004. On February 1, 2005, the paper's name changed to the Washington Examiner, and it adopted a logo and format similar to that of another newspaper owned by Anschutz, the San Francisco Examiner.[1] The Examiner's parent company, Clarity Media Group, also owns the conservative opinion magazine, The Weekly Standard.

The Washington Examiner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nice to know. However, it doesn't change the fact that Recovery.gov is loaded with incorrect data and stats. Nice try though!!

Here is another SOURCE and ANOTHER
The ZIP Code filing errors echo the phantom congressional district scandal that tore through Capitol Hill in November. Recovery.gov more than doubled the size of congress, listing 440 non-existent congressional districts as stimulus recipients.

The transparency board, which oversees the $18 million website, began correcting the errors after factcheck.org called it one of the “biggest whoppers of 2009.” The nonexistent districts were taken off the site and categorized as “Unassigned Congressional Districts.”
 
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The newspaper was formerly distributed only in the suburbs of Washington, under the titles of Montgomery Journal, Prince George's Journal, and Northern Virginia Journal. Their parent company, Journal Newspapers Inc., was purchased by conservative benefactor Philip Anschutz in October 2004. On February 1, 2005, the paper's name changed to the Washington Examiner, and it adopted a logo and format similar to that of another newspaper owned by Anschutz, the San Francisco Examiner.[1] The Examiner's parent company, Clarity Media Group, also owns the conservative opinion magazine, The Weekly Standard.

The Washington Examiner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Would you accept CBS News as a source?

Did "Phantom" Districts Get Stimulus Cash? - CBS News

Story goes back to mid November...

Thanks for the link, House.

From your article:

The response to the allegations... back in November... from Scarantino who found the issues in recovery.org to begin with:

There are problems with the stimulus data being reported, problems that call into question how accurate the job count is. But the "phantom congressional districts" are being used as a phantom issue to suggest that stimulus money has been misspent.

I'd say that's a fair representation.
 
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That money was intended for my district, whoever got it send it back.

This seems to be yet another indication of incompetence of government workers. Even I, with the sig line I use recognize that. In other words, I don't think Pres. Obama sits down and updates recovery.gov himself. I did appreciate his joking around about it when he 'pardoned' that thansgiving turkey, but damn I wish he would make sure his people got a handle on it.

I have always considered that if one could not make a living in the private sector, one can always go to work for a government agency. If that is true then it is simply a fact that these things get screwed up.
Anyway, somebody send that money back to the 15th congressional district of Arizona......
 

Thanks for the link, House.

From your article:

The response to the allegations... back in November... from Scarantino who found the issues in recovery.org to begin with:

There are problems with the stimulus data being reported, problems that call into question how accurate the job count is. But the "phantom congressional districts" are being used as a phantom issue to suggest that stimulus money has been misspent.

I'd say that's a fair representation.

Editorializing by the author...

This comment was more telling and gets at the real issue:

Scarantino said Wednesday that his initial blog post was just trying to show problems in the data. The nonexistent congressional districts amount to a "huge red flag," he said. If the oversight board that released the data can't catch that, what else is missing?

The real issue is that mistakes are being made with this government money and the oversight board isn't catching it.... It needs to be addressed.... I'm sure you can agree with that...
 

Thanks for the link, House.

From your article:

The response to the allegations... back in November... from Scarantino who found the issues in recovery.org to begin with:

There are problems with the stimulus data being reported, problems that call into question how accurate the job count is. But the "phantom congressional districts" are being used as a phantom issue to suggest that stimulus money has been misspent.

I'd say that's a fair representation.
Here is the problem Jillian, A simple "data entry" problem at the hospital can cause death. If these government workers cannot take the time to look up a zip code on a form prior to entering onto an official document, I don't want them entrusted with my medical data. I'm just silly that way.
 
Editorializing by the author...

This comment was more telling and gets at the real issue:

Scarantino said Wednesday that his initial blog post was just trying to show problems in the data. The nonexistent congressional districts amount to a "huge red flag," he said. If the oversight board that released the data can't catch that, what else is missing?

The real issue is that mistakes are being made with this government money and the oversight board isn't catching it.... It needs to be addressed.... I'm sure you can agree with that...

maybe, though I didn't read it the way you did.

FWIW, you won't get me to say the data entry is perfect. i think it has kinks they need to work out. i just don't think there's anything particularly nefarious in it. Personally, I'm still waiting to find out who was in the room with Cheney when he devised our energy policy... if we're actually talking about openness.
 
Here is the problem Jillian, A simple "data entry" problem at the hospital can cause death. If these government workers cannot take the time to look up a zip code on a form prior to entering onto an official document, I don't want them entrusted with my medical data. I'm just silly that way.

That wasn't the implication of the O/P though. The initial implication was that there was some type of illicit activity with regard to the funds.

As for data entry and zip code errors...

you ever meet an insurance company claims rep??
 
Here is the problem Jillian, A simple "data entry" problem at the hospital can cause death. If these government workers cannot take the time to look up a zip code on a form prior to entering onto an official document, I don't want them entrusted with my medical data. I'm just silly that way.

That wasn't the implication of the O/P though. The initial implication was that there was some type of illicit activity with regard to the funds.

As for data entry and zip code errors...

you ever meet an insurance company claims rep??
That was not the way I read it. However now that you mention it, it is axiomatic that whenever Gov't spends money there is fraud. It is non-partisan too - it happens regardless of which party is in control! We'll just have to wait for the proof and the inevitable investigations.
 
Would you accept CBS News as a source?

Did "Phantom" Districts Get Stimulus Cash? - CBS News

Story goes back to mid November...

Thanks for the link, House.

From your article:

The response to the allegations... back in November... from Scarantino who found the issues in recovery.org to begin with:



I'd say that's a fair representation.

Editorializing by the author...

This comment was more telling and gets at the real issue:

Scarantino said Wednesday that his initial blog post was just trying to show problems in the data. The nonexistent congressional districts amount to a "huge red flag," he said. If the oversight board that released the data can't catch that, what else is missing?

The real issue is that mistakes are being made with this government money and the oversight board isn't catching it.... It needs to be addressed.... I'm sure you can agree with that...


Couldn't agree more. This stuff should be caught before its iniput into the system.
 
Editorializing by the author...

This comment was more telling and gets at the real issue:

Scarantino said Wednesday that his initial blog post was just trying to show problems in the data. The nonexistent congressional districts amount to a "huge red flag," he said. If the oversight board that released the data can't catch that, what else is missing?

The real issue is that mistakes are being made with this government money and the oversight board isn't catching it.... It needs to be addressed.... I'm sure you can agree with that...

maybe, though I didn't read it the way you did.

FWIW, you won't get me to say the data entry is perfect. i think it has kinks they need to work out. i just don't think there's anything particularly nefarious in it. Personally, I'm still waiting to find out who was in the room with Cheney when he devised our energy policy... if we're actually talking about openness.

You know what I find kind of disheartening.... when instead of raising any concern, the liberals whine on about the previous adminstration. The 'Mommy, he started it' shit just doesn't cut it.

Could liberals and conservatives - and everyone in between - not agree that we should demand higher standards and honesty from our government? Could we not, just once in a while, not accept the status quo and demand better from those who are supposed to work for us?
 
Here is the problem Jillian, A simple "data entry" problem at the hospital can cause death. If these government workers cannot take the time to look up a zip code on a form prior to entering onto an official document, I don't want them entrusted with my medical data. I'm just silly that way.

Government workers didn't enter the data:
The incorrect ZIP codes are merely typos, Cheryl Arvidson, spokeswoman for the Recovery Board, told The Hill this week. Moreover, those numbers do not change the administration's initial projection that stimulus dollars have so far helped create or save more than 600,000 jobs, she added.

"The material was put in by the recipients [and] was transferred from the recipient reports on the website to these charts," Arvidson said. "Just because there are some typographical errors in ZIP codes doesn't mean this money is disappearing somehow."

Recovery Board says ZIP code stimulus errors with 'phantom' locales are 'typos'

The errors were in self-reported data by recipients. They may have made a keying error or they just may not know the ZIP code. These are just meaningless errors.
 
The newspaper was formerly distributed only in the suburbs of Washington, under the titles of Montgomery Journal, Prince George's Journal, and Northern Virginia Journal. Their parent company, Journal Newspapers Inc., was purchased by conservative benefactor Philip Anschutz in October 2004. On February 1, 2005, the paper's name changed to the Washington Examiner, and it adopted a logo and format similar to that of another newspaper owned by Anschutz, the San Francisco Examiner.[1] The Examiner's parent company, Clarity Media Group, also owns the conservative opinion magazine, The Weekly Standard.

The Washington Examiner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So you cannot defend the actions of the Obama admin so you question the source? Pathetic
 

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