"Give me control
of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel
Bauer Rothschild
In Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of congress he
announced that he would ask congress for the largest increase in military
spending in history. The military
industrial complex and Wall Street banking behemoths appear to have neutered
the Trump Administration after the media driven witch hunt that took the scalp
of Trump’s national security advisor, General Flynn. From Paul Craig Roberts:
Excerpt:
The Resurrection of Armageddon
“The U.S. intelligence community’s extraordinary campaign of leaks claiming
improper ties between President Trump’s team and Russia seeks to ensure a
lucrative New Cold War by blocking detente.” — Gareth Porter
It only required 24 days for the Deep State to castrate President
Donald Trump and terminate the promise that the high tensions with Russia
created during the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes would be
terminated by Trump’s presidency. As Gareth Porter shows conclusively, the case
against General Flynn, Trump’s 24-day National Security Adviser, and by
implication against Trump himself, is a
fake news creation.
Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan, planted fake reports, none of which
contained any evidence whatsoever, on
the CIA-compliant media whores known as “presstitutes.” The CIA’s media
whores knew that the reports were a CIA response to the threat to the $1,000
billion annual budget of the military/security complex that desperately needs
“the Russian threat” for its justification. But the media whores—-principally
the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC—-and all the rest as well are
more dedicated to serving their CIA master than they are to serving peace
between nuclear powers…
Trump’s presidency is effectively over. Even if he is permitted to
remain in office, he will be a figurehead for the Deep State’s presidency.
President Trump has already fallen into line with the military/security complex…
After one month in office the goal
has changed from reduced tensions with Russia to greater tensions. Greater
tensions might soon be upon us. There are plans to occupy part of Syria with US
troops in order to prevent Syria with Russia’s help from reuniting the country.
Part of Syria is to go to Turkey, part
to the Kurds, and Washington will keep a chunk. This way Washington can
keep the turmoil going forever…
It is bizarre to see the liberal-progressive-left allied with
the warmongers against Trump. As the neoconservatives pull nuclear
Armageddon out of the grave that Reagan and Gorbachev put it in, the American
left demands the impeachment of the president whose goal was better relations
with Russia… Where then is the opposition to the neoconservative ideology that
is driving US foreign policy toward world hegemony?....
The last three US presidents, and
now apparently Trump also, worked overtime to increase tensions between the two
nuclear powers... The ongoing vicious lies about the Russian connections of Trump and
his associates are so obviously false as
to be laughable, but the Russians are seeing that the falsity of the
charges notwithstanding, Trump’s National Security Adviser has fallen and Trump
himself might be next.
Dr. Roberts is right, sadly the Trump Administration that
brought such high hopes for a restoration of sanity for the world has
imploded. When Trump abandoned General
Flynn for “lying to Vice President Mike Pence” a neocon whose job it is to keep
Trump in line, it was over, there was now blood in the water. The sharks weren’t going to stop their
feeding frenzy until one by one Trump’s lieutenants were eliminated until Trump
himself is gone.
What is particularly frightening is that since the overthrow
of the American government in 2000 untold trillions of dollars have been stolen
from the American treasury and funneled into an unelected shadow government in the
Pentagon and State Department. It has
been reported that $6.5 trillion is missing, and that’s just from the
Pentagon. From The Fiscal Times:
Excerpt:
Pentagon’s Sloppy Bookkeeping Means $6.5 Trillion Can’t Pass an Audit
The Defense Department over the
years has been notorious for its lax accounting practices… An increasingly impatient Congress has
demanded that the Army achieve “audit
readiness” for the first time by Sept. 30, 2017, so that lawmakers can get
a better handle on military spending. But Pentagon watchdogs think that may be
mission impossible, and for good reason.
A Department of Defense inspector
general’s report released last week offered a jaw-dropping insight into just
how bad the military’s auditing system is.
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service, the behemoth Indianapolis-based agency that provides
finance and accounting services for the Pentagon’s civilian and military
members, could not provide adequate
documentation for $6.5 trillion worth of year-end adjustments to Army
general fund transactions and data…
“Army and Defense Finance and Accounting Service Indianapolis
personnel did not adequately support $2.8
trillion in third quarter adjustments and $6.5 trillion in year-end
adjustments made to Army General Fund data during FY 2015 financial statement
compilation,” wrote Lorin T. Venable, the assistant inspector general for
financial management and reporting. “We conducted this audit in accordance with
generally accepted government auditing standards.”
The DFAS has THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY for paying all DOD military and
personnel, retirees and annuitants, along with Pentagon contractors and
vendors. The agency is also in charge of electronic government initiatives,
including within the Executive Office of the President, the Department of
Energy and the Departing of Veterans Affairs.
A further mystery is what happened to thousands of documents that
should be on file but aren’t. The IG study found that DFAS “did not
document or support why the Defense
Departmental Reporting System . . . removed
at least 16,513 of 1.3 million records during Q3 FY 2015. As a result, the
data used to prepare the FY 2015 AGF third quarter and year-end financial
statements were unreliable and lacked an adequate audit trail,” the IG’s report
stated.
Hmm, interesting that the Army and Defense Finance
Accounting Service that has “the sole
responsibility for paying all DOD military and personnel, retirees and
annuitants, along with Pentagon
contractors and vendors” is located in Indiana, the state where Vice
President Mike Pence was governor before becoming Trump’s running mate. Pence was chosen by the GOP for a reason, I
guess we know why now. Think about that,
if Trump is ejected from the White House Mike Pence is President.
Is it any wonder that Wall Street soared after Trump’s
announcement of the largest Department of Defense increase in history? And, what about congress? Year after year they plow another half
trillion into the DOD budget while slashing food stamps, stagnating Social
Security and slashing Medicare and Medicaid.
You would think with all the trillions spent on defense that America
would have the most sophisticated war machine in the world, but you’d be
wrong. From Bloomberg:
Excerpt:
F-35's $1 Trillion Support Cost Ticks Up as More Flights Seen
The trillion-dollar cost to operate and support Lockheed Martin
Corp.’s F-35 jet through decades of flight has
increased by about $107 billion from last year, according to Pentagon
officials.
The latest estimate -- $1.12 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars
-- reflects new assumptions by the
Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps that their versions of the fighter will fly
more and last longer, according to Air Force Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan,
the F-35 program’s manager. The cost was originally estimated at $900 million
in 2009…
The revised estimate was included
Friday in the Pentagon’s annual report on costs of major weapons systems. It
came as F-35s continue to experience
cracks of varying severity in ground-based stress testing and are hobbled by
unstable mission systems software. Even as the planes continue to be built,
they are at least two years away from
the start of year-long combat tests to assess whether they’ll deliver their
full promised capability…
Overall, the 79 major programs included in the Pentagon’s annual report increased by $7 billion to $1.6 trillion, primarily
because of increased quantities of missiles, submarines and jets.
The cost of Raytheon Co.’s troubled
ground station for new GPS III satellites has increased $586 million to $4.19
billion to cover new overruns caused by shortcomings that have delayed fielding the system’s full
capability by five years, to July 2021. The Air Force must pay for the overrun under the program’s “cost-plus”
contract.
Trillions for a boondoggle that doesn’t even work and won’t
work. Just look at that piece of crap.
Tragically the F35 is an abject failure and the DOD along
with congress keeps plowing more money into the F35 trough. While the DOD dishes out contracts on a “cost
plus” basis, meaning the longer it takes to manufacture the F35 the more money
the contractors make. While America has
been paying for the F35 for 15 years and counting, Russia has developed a far
superior fighter jet. Take a look at
this:
Congress needs an enemy in order to justify the continued
rape and pillage of the American treasury.
Donald Trump has threatened to pull money from the F35 program and in retaliation
the American intelligence community has manufactured and leaked bogus claims
about Russia interfering in the American presidential election. From No Quarter:
Excerpt:
The silliness over Russia is,
obviously, part of the Establishment’s drive to get rid of Trump. Yes, the man
is erratic, contradictory, shoots before he aims, backs off much of what he has
promised, and may be unqualified as President–but that is not why Washington
and New York want to get rid of him. It
is about money and power, as is everything in the United States. Wall
Street, the Pentagon, the Neocons, and the Empire run America. Trump has threatened their rice bowls.
He has threatened to cut the F-35, a huge blow to Lockheed-Martin
and hundreds of subcontractors; to pull
US troops out of South Korea, a blow to the Empire; to end the wars, a blow both to the Empire and the military industry
getting rich from them; to pull troops
out of Okinawa, crippling the Empire in the Pacific; to start a trade war with China with a forty-five percent tariff of
Chinese goods, threatening American
corporations with factories there; and to
chase out illegal immigrants, an important source of cheap labor to
businesses. He has called NATO
“obsolete,” when leaving it would be the death knell of the Empire; and threatened to establish good relations
with Russia, when the lack of a European enemy would leave NATO even more
obviously unnecessary.
Thus New York and its branch
operation in Washington resuscitate Russia as a bugbear to terrify the rubes,
meaning most of the public. Money.
Power. Empire.
I want to strongly reiterate a
point I have made in previous posts–there is a covert action campaign, i.e. an
information operation, being run against the American people. It is a pure propaganda campaign and is
designed to portray Russia as the greatest threat to the world.
Larry Johnson is absolutely spot on. Donald Trump is a threat to the Empire and
for that the corrupt members of the Democratic Party and the Never Trump wing
of the Republican Party will use every means available to manufacture the
“Russia/Trump” crisis. With a media
controlled by the military industrial complex the drums of war against Trump
will continue until the American people, stupefied by a lack of a free press,
will eventually call for the impeachment of Donald Trump.
One of the only honest members of congress is Democrat Tulsi
Gabbard, who is currently under investigation by congress after having traveled
to Syria on a “fact finding” mission.
Facts be damned. From TheAnti-Media:
Excerpt:
Tulsi Gabbard: To Solve Refugee Crisis, Stop Funding Terrorism
(ANTIMEDIA) Democratic Congresswoman Tulsi
Gabbard, the politician who previously accused the U.S. of arming ISIS, is
still calling on the U.S. government to stop its disastrous regime change
policies in the Middle East.
According to a press release made
public on Tuesday, Gabbard has again
called for the U.S. to stop aiding terrorists like al-Qaeda and ISIS. Gabbard’s
guest at the presidential address to Congress, a Kurdish refugee activist, also
called for an end to the U.S. policy of “regime change in Syria.”
“In the face of unimaginable
heartbreak, Tima has been a voice for the voiceless, a champion for refugees
worldwide, and a strong advocate for ending the regime change war in Syria. I
am honored to welcome her to Washington tonight as we raise our voices to call on our nation’s leaders to end the
counterproductive regime change war in Syria that has caused great human
suffering, refugees, loss of life, and devastation.
We urge leaders in Congress to pass the Stop Arming Terrorists Act
and end our destructive policy of using American taxpayer dollars to provide
direct and indirect support to armed militants allied with terrorist groups like
al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria, who are fighting to overthrow the Syrian
government.”
The war in Syria that was started by the CIA through a phony
color revolution has not been paid for through the DOD budget. In addition to the $6.5 trillion missing at
the DOD, congress has set up a secret slush fund designed to fund misadventures
like the Syrian war. It’s called the
Overseas Contingency Fund and there is no oversight. From Salon:
Excerpt:
“Crack cocaine for the Pentagon”: Meet the secret slush fund that’s getting
hawks high
“It’s basically crack cocaine for the Pentagon,” said Gordon Adams,
a professor at American University who worked on defense budgets at the Office
of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration. “It gives you a
flexibility that most domestic discretionary agencies would kill for…”
The development of OCO represents a new mechanism for funding
American wars since 9/11, another gift handed out by the George W. Bush Administration. “There’s no prior instance of
such a thing in American military practice,” said Gordon Adams.
Previous wars were funded first
with a supplemental spending bill,
outside of the budget cycle, usually for 1-2 years. Congress could put
restrictions on the supplemental, like the scope of the spending, or reporting
requirements. If the war continued, the Defense Department would fold the cost
of maintaining operations into the overall budget…
Afghanistan and Iraq changed all
that… Over time, the Pentagon started to
include things in supplemental requests like ordering an F-15, when no F-15s
were shot down in Iraq or Afghanistan. All the money was fungible, able to be
moved inside or outside the supplemental budget. You could call it a slush fund or an off-balance-sheet vehicle, but
it enabled regular military spending to grow without scrutiny…
As OCO became more of what Gordon
Adams calls “magic money,” the White House got in on the act. They created a $5
billion counterterrorism account and stuck it in OCO, keeping the fund alive
even after Iraq and Afghanistan end. The $1 billion “European Reassurance” fund to support Ukraine came out of OCO.
Three thousand troops to West Africa to handle Ebola? OCO. $500 million to train the Syrian opposition? OCO. Even State
Department funding has gone in OCO, as much as $7 billion, over 15 percent of
their total expenditures.
While congress cuts tons of basic services, here's the
secret slush fund the military doesn't want you to discover. While America is in a steep decline with
Wall Street chosen politicians running the country, it seems Putin has learned a
valuable lesson from this American “exceptionalism.” The result of that lesson was seen in the
Russian annexation of Crimea. Russia’s
investment in their military, as in people, has paid off big time.
According to a New York Times article called “Crimea Offers Showcase for Russia’s
Rebooted Military”:
PEREVALNOYE, Crimea — The soldiers
guarding the entrances to the surrounded Ukrainian military base here just
south of the capital, Simferopol, had little in common with their predecessors
from past Russian military actions. Lean and fit, few if any seemed to be
conscripts. Their uniforms were crisp and neat, and their new helmets were
bedecked with tinted safety goggles. They were sober…
Past Russian military actions have
often showcased an army suffering from a poor state of discipline and supply,
its ranks filled mostly with the conscripts who had not managed to buy
deferments or otherwise evade military service. Public drunkenness was common,
as were tactical indecisiveness and soldiers who often looked as if they could
not run a mile, much less swiftly.
Yes, five years ago Russia’s army was a mess, with broken,
outdated equipment, low pay, improper training and low morale. Putin recognized you can’t have a strong
military if you don’t value your military personnel.
The transformation of the armed
forces has been a personal priority of Mr. Putin, who as prime minister from
2009 to 2012 and more recently in his return to the presidency has overseen billions of dollars in new military
expenditures…
Since the start of 2012, salaries for most military personnel have
roughly tripled, to between $700 and $1,150 a month for privates and
sergeants — a respectable amount in Russian terms. The Kremlin has also expanded housing and education benefits.
Putin has increased the salaries, expanded housing and
education benefits for military personnel in stark contrast to America. In the
meantime, American military personnel have had pay cuts, cuts in education
benefits and slashed pensions in order to funnel those funds directly to
Wall Street in the form of contracts to build outdated, unnecessary equipment
that generates Wall Street profits.
According to Investors.com:
The Obama administration plans to cut the military pensions of those
who served their country while giving public employees a break by exempting
their ObamaCare subsidies from sequestration.
On the heels of announcing that Army
troop levels will be cut below pre-World War II levels, the Military Times
has reported that the Obama
administration is planning to reduce military pension costs by 10% by
converting part of their retirement to 401(k)-like defined-contribution plans
from defined-benefit plans…
The Military Officers Association
of America has calculated that the
typical Army sergeant, as a result of pension and other benefit changes, stands
to lose up to $5,000 in annual benefits under the administration's fiscal
2015 budget. The budget also calls for slashing subsidies for base commissaries, a
5% increase in the cost of military housing and a 1% cap on annual active-duty
pay increases…
And who can forget that when George W. Bush sent our troops
into Iraq with a fleet of Hummers, our soldiers had to rummage through trash
heaps to retrofit the Hummers to protect against IEDs.
Looking an Army soldier who was
pleading for better protection against improvised explosive devices (IEDs)
straight in the eye, Rumsfeld coldly, clinically and callously replied, “As you
know, you go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want
or wish to have at a later time.”
Yes, according to Rumsfeld, a big “F” you to our
soldiers. That has been our Wall Street
politicians’ answer to our army since 2000.
Spending on adequate equipment and safety measures cuts into Wall Street
profits.
So now President Trump has called for the largest increase
in DOD spending in history. From Zero Hedge:
Excerpt:
Trump Seeks Sharp Increases In
Military Spending, "Drastic Cuts" To State Department, EPA
As part of his proposed budget, President Trump will instruct federal
agencies on Monday to assemble a spending plan for the coming fiscal year that includes sharp increases in Defense
Department spending and "drastic cuts" to domestic agencies such
as the State Department, the EPA and other non-defense programs, so that he can
keep his promise to leave Social Security and Medicare alone, according to four
senior administration officials cited by the NYT. The budget outline will be
the first move in a campaign this week to reset the narrative of Mr. Trump’s
turmoil-tossed White House.
Coming one day before delivering
his high-stakes "State of the Union" address on Tuesday to a joint
session of Congress, Trump will demand a budget with tens of billions of dollars
in reductions to the Environmental Protection Agency and State Department,
administration officials reported. The
NYT adds that social safety net programs, aside from the big entitlement
programs for retirees, would also be hit hard. Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin, speaking on Fox News earlier on Sunday, said Trump's budget would not
seek cuts in federal social programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
It appears Donald Trump’s new administration has been
neutered by a corrupt intelligence community, the DOD and the most corrupt
congress in the history of America.
While Trump spoke, America was treated to a show of disdain for the
American people by Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker Paul Ryan who sat
snickering in the background. It was a
big “F” you to the American people by congress.
Hopefully I am wrong and Donald Trump will take the reins
away from congress and lead the nation into a new era of peace and prosperity. But if what we saw in Trump’s address is any
indication, it is a sad day in America. Please
Mr. Trump resist this congressional “Russian witch hunt” and push through the sanity
agenda you promised. Please Mr. Trump,
no more war memorials.
By Patricia Baeten
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