Morning Smoke: Another MF Global as Broker Said Missing $220 Million

MORNING SMOKE

Where there's smoke, there's fire. POGO's Morning Smoke is a collection of the freshest investigations, scoops, and opinions related to the world of government oversight. Have a story you'd like to see included? Contact POGO's online producer

Financial Oversight

MF Global Redux Feared as Broker Said Missing $220 Million
David Sheppard and Tom Polansek, Reuters

SEC Won't Require Real-Time Data in Market-Tracking System
Sarah N. Lynch, Reuters

Bank Scandal Turns Spotlight on Regulators
Ben Protess and Mark Scott, The New York Times

Lobbying

U.S. Defense Firms Spending More on Lobbying
Zachary Fryer-Biggs, Defense News

Whistleblower Issues

US Judge: Dodd-Frank Beefs Up Protection for Whistleblowers
Jonathan Stempel, Reuters

Treasury IG Finds Deficiencies in IRS Whistleblower Program
Corporate Whistleblower Blog

Whistleblowers and the Obama Presidency: The National Security Dilemma
Richard Moberly, Social Science Research Network

National Security

CNO Ready to Cut Back on F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
Mackenzie Eaglen, Aol Defense

Marines Peg 'Bad Flying' As Cause for April V-22 Crash in Morocco
Richard Whittle, Aol Defense

Osprey's Next Jobs: Tanker or AWACS?
Defense Tech

Spy Agencies Won't Read Americans' Email for Security: General
Tabassum Zakaria and David Alecander, MSNBC

Comments

[Dfens]

Oh, and an additional comment about this stupid idea to make a tanker variant of the V-22, what idiot came up with that idea? What would it tank, other V-22's? It can't fly fast enough to tank F-18s or F-35s. All it could possibly tank is other V-22s or helicopters, and even then with the huge wash created by those 31' rotors it would be an incrediblly difficult task to tank off one. End the misery, put the V-22 down!

[Dfens]

Regarding the V-22 crash that was "the pilot's fault", I can't imagine designing a VTOL vehicle with 2 widely separated centers of gravity (cg). This vehicle has one, aft cg for vertical mode and a forward cg for forward flight mode and is basically uncontrollable in between the two! So their answer to that incrediblly stupid design flaw is to tell the pilots to transition through the uncontrollable zone at a high enough altitude that they can recover control before hitting the ground. My opinion of this aircraft drops every time I hear something new about it.