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Paul Merrell

Pentagon 'big winner' in $1T omnibus bill | TheHill - 0 views

thehill.com/...er-in-1t-omnibus-spending-bill

war & peace War-Party appropriations sequestration

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • The Pentagon and the defense industry came out of the $1 trillion omnibus spending bill as a big winner, experts and lawmakers said Tuesday, a day after the bill was released. “The big winner is the Defense Department. They should be breaking out champagne in the Pentagon,” said Gordon Adams, a defense budget expert and former Clinton official.The omnibus spending bill provides about $497 billion for the Defense Department in 2014 — about the same as in 2013. But the Pentagon also received $85.2 billion in overseas contingency operations (OCO) for the war in Afghanistan, roughly $5 billion more than it requested for 2014.Before last month’s budget deal that relieved $22.4 billion in sequestration cuts, the 2014 defense budget would have been around $475 billion. The OCO funding, which Adams said is the “cherry on top of the dessert,” can be used to pay for operations and maintenance in the base budget and help restore military readiness lost in previous years. Fiscal watchdog and anti-war groups criticized the $5 billion increase from the Pentagon's request in OCO funding as a “slush fund to pad the department’s budget and avoid spending reductions,” especially with the winding down of the Afghan War. 
  • The defense industry was also a winner in the omnibus spending bill, Adams said. All major weapons systems procurement requests were fully-funded, including the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons system in history. Also fully funded were the Army’s M1 Abrams tank program, and the Navy’s shipbuilding plans for eight new ships. Israel is also a winner in the omnibus spending bill, with money fully provided for the Arrow, David’s Sling, and the Iron Dome rocket defense systems. 
  • While lawmakers touted the completed spending bill as a win for nearly everyone, there were a few losers. One of the most notable losers included the Pentagon’s research and development projects, which received $7 billion less than last year.In addition, the defense space program and the procurement for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye program were delayed. Also, funds for the Afghan National Security Forces is about half as much as the White House requested, Adams said.
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  • Overall, lawmakers said the omnibus spending bill, which is expected to pass this week, was 'a good start'. 
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Jan 14
     
    The War Party wins again. Spending cuts will come out of non-defense branches of government. Meanwhile, the Judicial Branch is nearly flat on its back because of sequestration. Judicial spending before sequestration was only 0.19 per cent of federal spending (19 cents of each $100) but  $350 million got chopped by sequestration.  The result: things like massive delays in court proceedings and a 35 per cent cut in personnel in the Federal Defenders office, a loss of institutional knowledge that will never be recovered.
Paul Merrell

Pentagon Still Plans to Blow Through Its Allowance - 0 views

www.pogo.org/...low-through-its-allowance.html

war & peace Defense-spending accountability

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • a few years ago, Congress gave the Pentagon strict limits on its annual allowance, but the Department has struggled to stay within that budget. In advance of the Pentagon’s annual budget request, which usually is submitted during the spring, a senior defense official, Alan Estevez, confirmed that the Department plans on blowing through the budget caps next year. “We’re going to propose a budget next January and it’s going to be above sequestration levels.” Shocker!
  • When Estevez refers to “above sequestration levels,” he means above the legal spending limits that Congress has placed on the federal discretionary budget via legislation called the Budget Control Act (BCA). However, the Pentagon continues to propose funding levels that exceed the authorized amounts. Earlier this year, when the Pentagon first submitted its budget for Fiscal Year 2015, military planners proposed spending $115 billion more than is allowed by the spending caps over the next five years.
  • Now, Estevez is confirming that the Pentagon will indeed follow through on its pledge to blow through its allowance. “We’re obviously planning a budget above sequestration, similar to what we put forward in [Fiscal Year] ’15,” says Estevez. This coming year, in Fiscal Year 2016, the Pentagon will propose spending more than $60 billion above the amount authorized by Congress. CBO Assessment
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  • While the Pentagon admits that it wants to spend $115 billion more than is allowed, an independent government watchdog says that, in reality, the Pentagon wants to spend even more than that. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which objectively analyzes the federal government’s long-term spending plans, the Pentagon actually would spend $182 billion more than is allowed over the five-year period from FY 2015 through FY 2019. That’s because CBO has a more realistic way of evaluating Pentagon spending plans.
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Nov 14
     
    Remember September 10, 2001? That's the day that Donald Rumsfeld announced that the Pentagon couldn't account for $2.3 trillion in spending. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU4GdHLUHwU The accountability situation hasn't changed. Ignoring the sequestration limits simply compounds the DoD's impunity for the law. 
Paul Merrell

The Stunning Hypocrisy of the U.S. Government | Washington's Blog - 0 views

www.washingtonsblog.com/...-hypocrisy-versus-honesty.html

surveillance state NSA hypocricy

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Congress has exempted itself from the prohibition against trading on inside information … the law that got Martha Stewart and many other people thrown in jail. There are many other ways in which the hypocrisy of the politicians in D.C. is hurting our country. Washington politicians say we have to slash basic services, and yet waste hundreds of billions of dollars on counter-productive boondoggles. If the politicos just stopped throwing money at corporate welfare queens, military and security boondoggles and pork, harmful quantitative easing, unnecessary nuclear subsidies, the failed war on drugs, and other wasted and counter-productive expenses, we wouldn’t need to impose austerity on the people. The D.C. politicians said that the giant failed banks couldn’t be nationalized, because that would be socialism. Instead of temporarily nationalizing them and then spinning them off to the private sector – or breaking them up – the politicians have bailed them out to the tune of many tens of billions of dollars each year, and created a system where all of the profits are privatized, and all of the losses socialized. Obama and Congress promised help for struggling homeowners, and passed numerous bills that they claimed would rescue the little guy. But every single one of these bills actually bails out the banks … and doesn’t really help the homeowner.
  • The Federal Reserve promises to do everything possible to reduce unemployment. But its policies are actually destroying jobs. Many D.C. politicians pay lip service to helping the little guy … while pushing policies which have driven inequality to levels surpassing slave-owning societies. The D.C. regulators pretend that they are being tough on the big banks, but are actually doing everything they can to help cover up their sins. Many have pointed out Obama’s hypocrisy in slamming Bush’s spying programs … and then expanding them (millions more). And in slamming China’s cyber-warfare … while doing the same thing. And – while the Obama administration is spying on everyone in the country – it is at the same time the most secretive administration ever (background). That’s despite Obama saying he’s running the most transparent administration ever.
  • Glenn Greenwald – the Guardian reporter who broke the NSA spying revelations – has documented for many years the hypocritical use of leaks by the government to make itself look good … while throwing the book at anyone who leaks information embarrassing to the government. Greenwald notes today: Prior to Barack Obama’s inauguration, there were a grand total of three prosecutions of leakers under the Espionage Act (including the prosecution of Dan Ellsberg by the Nixon DOJ). That’s because the statute is so broad that even the US government has largely refrained from using it. But during the Obama presidency, there are now seven such prosecutions: more than double the number under all prior US presidents combined.
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  • The irony is obvious: the same people who are building a ubiquitous surveillance system to spy on everyone in the world, including their own citizens, are now accusing the person who exposed it of “espionage”. It seems clear that the people who are actually bringing “injury to the United States” are those who are waging war on basic tenets of transparency and secretly constructing a mass and often illegal and unconstitutional surveillance apparatus aimed at American citizens – and those who are lying to the American people and its Congress about what they’re doing – rather than those who are devoted to informing the American people that this is being done.
  • Similarly, journalists who act as mere stenographers for the government who never criticize in more than a superficial fashion are protected and rewarded … but reporters who actually report on government misdeeds are prosecuted and harassed. Further, the biggest terrorism fearmongers themselves actually support terrorism. And see this. In the name of fighting terrorism, the U.S. has been directly supporting Al Qaeda and other terrorists and providing them arms, money and logistical support in Syria, Libya, Mali, Bosnia, Chechnya, Iran, and many other countries … both before and after 9/11. And see this. The American government has long labeled foreigners as terrorists for doing what America does. Moreover, government officials may brand Americans as potential terrorists if they peacefully protest, complain about the taste of their water, or do any number of other normal, all-American things.
  • This is especially hypocritical given that liberals like Noam Chomsky and conservatives like the director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan (Lt. General William Odom) all say that the American government is the world’s largest purveyor of terrorism. As General Odom noted: Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics, the slogans of today’s war on terrorism merely makes the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world. These are just a couple of ways in which the D.C. politicians are hypocrites.
Gary Edwards

The Fiscal Cliff And The Keyser Soze Option | RedState - 1 views

www.redstate.com/...iff-and-the-keyser-soze-option

Obammunism fiscal-cliff Sequestration

shared by Gary Edwards on 10 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 10 Nov 12
     
    Excellent analogy.  My take on the fiscal cliff is that we have an agreement in place, signed off on by Obama, the Democrats and the Republicans.  Let's hold to it.  Hold the line.  And under no circumstances raise the debt limit.  Bring home the troops.  Make the spending cuts in the sequestration agreement.  Replace that idiot Speaker of the House Boehner with Representative Darryl Isa.  Freeze Obama with his own agreement, and then dig our way out of this by stopping the socialist spending spree. "In the movie Usual Suspects, Keyser Soze is confronted with the fact that his wife and children would be an impediment in dealing with his business competitors. In a way the House GOP finds itself in the same position as Keyser Soze. Our home has been invaded. Our family despoiled. And we are facing a never ending series of ever increasing demands from the criminals who have abused us. Sometimes the only way out of a dilemma is by clearing the table and starting again from scratch. At midnight on December 21, 2012 the United States will be faced with what is being called the "fiscal cliff." In short this cliff is composed of several parts. 1. The payroll tax reduction passed in 2010 will end. 2. The temporary tax rates passed under President Bush will lapse. 3. Obamacare's taxes will come due. 4. The Alternative Minimum Tax will expand to many more taxpayers. 5. Extended unemployment benefits will expire. 6. Some $78 billion in federal spending will be sequestered. 7. Medicare "doc fix" will expire. There are several sets of sacred cattle here. The GOP is primarily interested in protecting the tax cuts and Defense spending. The Democrats are primarily interested in preserving the social spending and free stuff for their base. This time around the Democrats, in their never ending paean to class warfare, are insisting that the Bush Tax Rates for the wealthiest Americans be allowed to expire. The GOP should not negotiate on this. This will put the GOP
Paul Merrell

Trump lays out non-interventionist U.S. military policy | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...a-trump-military-idUSKBN13W06L

Trump non-intervention U.S.-foreign-policy promises

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • President-elect Donald Trump laid out a U.S. military policy on Tuesday that would avoid interventions in foreign conflicts and instead focus heavily on defeating the Islamic State militancy.In the latest stop on a "thank you" tour of states critical to his Nov. 8 election win, Trump introduced his choice for defense secretary, General James Mattis, to a large crowd in this city near the Fort Bragg military base, which has deployed soldiers to 90 countries around the world."We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn't be involved with," Trump said. "Instead, our focus must be on defeating terrorism and destroying ISIS, and we will."Trump's rhetoric was similar to what he said during the election campaign when he railed against the war in Iraq.In Fayetteville, he vowed a strong rebuilding of the U.S. military, which he suggested has been stretched too thin. Instead of investing in wars, he said, he would spend money to build up America's aging roads, bridges and airports.
  • Even so, Trump said he wants to boost spending on the military. To help pay for his buildup, Trump pledged to seek congressional approval for lifting caps on defense spending that were part of "sequestration" legislation that imposed cut spending across the board."We don't want to have a depleted military because we’re all over the place fighting in areas that we shouldn't be fighting in. It's not going to be depleted any longer," he said.Trump said any nation that shares these goals will be considered a U.S. partner. "We don't forget. We want to strengthen old friendships and seek out new friendships," he said. He said the policy of "intervention and chaos" must come to an end.While U.S. armed forces are deployed in far-flung places around the globe, they are only involved currently in active combat in the Middle East, specifically Iraq and Syria for the most part."We will build up our military not as an act of aggression, but as an act of prevention," he said. "In short, we seek peace through strength."
  • Trump described Mattis as the right person for the job and urged Congress to approve a waiver to let him take on the civilian position. Under U.S. law a military leader must be retired for seven years before becoming eligible to become defense secretary.Speaking to the crowed, Mattis said, "I look forward to being the civilian leader as long as the Congress gives me the waiver and the Senate votes to consent.""We're going to get you that waiver," Trump said, returning to the microphone. "If you don’t get that waiver there are going to be a lot of angry people."
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Dec 16
     
    Sounds better than Hillary's promises. But I don't like the military build-up and breaking sequestration to do it part. There isn't money to build civilian infrastructure and build up the military. So who knows what Trump will do when he comes head to head with that reality.
Paul Merrell

IPS - U.S.: Right-Wing Hawks, Arms Industry Rally Against Pentagon Cuts | Inter Press S... - 0 views

www.ipsnews.net/...ry-rally-against-pentagon-cuts

corporate welfare financial-collapse neocons

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • While Iran, Russia, and China are all pretty scary, the ominous word “sequestration” is what is keeping right-wing hawks and their friends in the defence industry up at night. While they have been rallying their forces for most of the past year, their campaign to avoid the “spectre of sequestration”, as they often refer to it, shifted into high gear on Capitol Hill this week, as top industry executives were summoned to testify to the urgency of the threat. At stake is could be as much as 600 billion dollars in Pentagon funding – much of which would presumably be spent on lucrative procurement contracts for new weapons systems – over the next 10 years, as well as what the hawks see as the further erosion of U.S. global military dominance.
  • The sequestration spectre arises from a 2011 agreement, codified in the Budget Control Act, between President Barack Obama and Republican Congressional leaders for cutting the yawning U.S. federal deficit over the next decade. The Act provides that if Congress cannot agree on a specific plan that would cut 1.2 trillion dollars in the budget by the end of this year, then the cuts would take place automatically beginning in 2013, with half of the total taken from the Pentagon and the rest from non-defence programmes.
Paul Merrell

Tomgram: Mattea Kramer, Is the Pentagon Doomed -- To Be Flush Forever | TomDispatch - 0 views

www.tomdispatch.com/..._doomed_--_to_be_flush_forever

war & peace defense budget sequestration Afghanistan

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Today, TomDispatch regular Mattea Kramer provides a third potential reason in her striking explanation of just how the Pentagon has been managing to avoid serious sequestration cuts.  It turns out that billions of dollars in extra funding are being salted away in a supplementary war-fighting budget that Congress grants the U.S. military, which is subject to neither cuts nor caps.  But here’s a potential problem: that budget relies on the existence of an Afghan War.  What if, after 2014, there isn’t even a residual American component to that war?  Not that the Pentagon wouldn't try to keep "war budget" funding alive, but it's clearly a harder, more embarrassing task without a war to fund. That's just one of the questions that emerges from Kramer’s clear-eyed look at what -- once you’ve read her piece -- can only be considered the Pentagon’s sequestration con game.  It’s a shocking tale largely because, while the budget figures are clear enough, you can’t read about them anywhere except here at TomDispatch. 
Gary Edwards

Federal Loans Fund Big-Ticket Energy Projects At Firms Outside Of U.S. | Fox News - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...y-projects-at-firms-outside-us

Abengoa Solyndra Obama-Crony-Socialism Watermelon-Shakedown

shared by Gary Edwards on 05 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 05 Oct 11
     
    Solyndra II - The Spanish company, Abenoga has recieved a massive DOE taxpayer funded "investment".  Looks like another example of corrupt Obama crony socialism and blatant money laundering for the Socialist party, USA. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), such solar thermal power is far and away the most expensive option that it considered in projecting the cost of new electricity technologies over the next four years.Using a complex calculation known as "levelized cost," EIA says that solar thermal energy will weigh in at $311.60 per megawatt/hour, vs. $210.70 for more conventional solar paneling, and $113.90 for "advanced nuclear."Click here for the EIA cost estimatesCompared to more conventional energy sources, solar thermal is even pricier -- much pricier. The EIA says that natural gas-fueled energy plants, even using advanced techniques to remove carbon from their emissions, would cost $89.3 per megawatt/hour, while ordinary gas fueled natural gas generation would cost $66.10.A conventional coal-fired electrical plant -- anathema in green circles -- would provide energy at $94.80 per megawatt/hour, and one equipped with "clean" coal technology and sequestration of carbon emissions would provide electricity at a cost of $136.20 per megawatt/hour.The second-most pricey option on the EIA list, after solar thermal, is energy from wind turbines placed in the ocean, which comes in at $243.20 per megawatt/hour.In other words, even that difficult and costly-to-produce energy source is projected to cost only three-quarters as much. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/22/federal-loans-fund-big-ticket-energy-projects-at-firms-outside-us/?intcmp=obinsite#ixzz1Zs0en100
Paul Merrell

Hagel Resigns Under Pressure as Global Crises Test Pentagon - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ense-chief-under-pressure.html

war & peace Obama Hagel Rice

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel resigned under pressure on Monday after President Obama determined that he had to shake up his national security team in the face of escalating conflicts overseas and hawkish Republicans reasserting themselves on Capitol Hill.
  • Aides said Mr. Obama made the decision to remove his defense secretary on Friday after weeks of rising tension over a variety of issues, including what administration officials said were Mr. Hagel’s delays in transferring detainees from the military prison in Guantánamo Bay and a dispute with Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, over Syria policy.
  • In reality, Mr. Hagel was never able to penetrate the president’s tight national security team of West Wing loyalists, officials at the White House and the Pentagon said. And faced with the calls for a shake-up of his national security staff to better deal with an onslaught of global crises, Mr. Obama balked at the idea of replacing Ms. Rice, Secretary of State John Kerry or the powerful White House chief of staff, Denis R. McDonough.
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  • The president is “too close to Susan Rice, and John Kerry’s in the middle of Iran negotiations,” said one administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity. “So he went for the low-hanging fruit” — Mr. Hagel, who was criticized by White House aides as largely silent in meetings, and who Mr. Obama had often bypassed in recent months for Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a favorite in the West Wing.
  • In the view of White House officials, Mr. Hagel has helped to thwart Mr. Obama’s pledge to close Guantánamo with his concerns about the security risks posed by the release of detainees. He recently pulled back from plans to repatriate four Afghans who had been approved for transfer, a decision that annoyed Ms. Rice, officials said.Continue reading the main story White House officials also expressed annoyance over a sharply critical two-page memo that Mr. Hagel sent to Ms. Rice last month, in which he warned that the administration’s Syria policy was in danger of unraveling because of its failure to clarify its intentions toward President Bashar al-Assad. Senior officials complained that Mr. Hagel had never made such a case in internal debates, suggesting that he was trying to position himself for history on a crucial issue as he was talking to Mr. Obama about leaving his job. Mr. Hagel’s defenders said he stayed quiet to avoid leaks.
  • “The next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus,” a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He insisted that Mr. Hagel was not fired, saying that the defense secretary initiated discussions about his future two weeks ago with the president, and that the two men mutually agreed it was time for him to leave. Continue reading the main story Write A Comment Now, however, the American military is in escalating crises. Some 3,000 American troops are being deployed in Iraq to help the Iraqi military fight the Sunni militants of the Islamic State, even as the administration struggles to come up with, and articulate, a strategy to defeat the group in both Iraq and Syria.
  • In the past few months he has been overshadowed by General Dempsey, who officials said had won the confidence of Mr. Obama with his recommendation of military action against the Islamic State.
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Nov 14
     
    Obama sides with his inner circle neocons, gets rid of Hagel, who was brought on board to downsize the Pentagon to meet congressional sequestration requirements. The neocons want war; Obama gives itto them. Score one more for the War Party.  
Paul Merrell

IMF criticises US spending cuts - Americas - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...201361514211826626.html

Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Banksters economy sequestration

shared by Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • The International Monetary Fund has assailed US government spending cuts as "excessively rapid and ill-designed" as it cut the economy's growth forecast for 2014. Warning that the country still faces downside risks to its recovery, the IMF cheered the Federal Reserve's stimulus efforts and urged Congress to help firm up growth by repealing the severe "sequester" budget cuts. In its annual report on the US economy, the IMF said growth would be only 1.9 percent this year, due to the sequester's impact, when it had the potential of growing as much as 1.75 percentage points faster.
  • It suggested fundamental tax reforms as part of actions to confront the longer term fiscal shortfall, including eliminating many exemptions and loopholes, and introducing a value-added tax and a carbon tax. It credited the Federal Reserve's aggressive quantitative easing - its $85 billion-a-month bond purchases, to hold down interest rates - with keeping the economy on a sure footing as the government slashes spending.
  • Paul Merrell on 15 Jun 13
     
    Austerity cuts for the rest of the world but more spending and "quantitative easing" for the U.S. Banksters!
Paul Merrell

Cut Social Security & Veterans' Benefits? Cut the Pentagon Instead | Common Dreams - 0 views

www.commondreams.org/...09-5

war & peace sequestration defense budget

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • If, like most Americans, you prefer to cut what Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has called the "bloated" Pentagon budget instead of cutting Social Security and veterans' benefits, you have even more reason to rejoice. Because at this political juncture, everyone in America who says "no cuts to Social Security or veterans' benefits" is effectively saying "cut the bloated Pentagon budget," whether they do so explicitly or not. If the "grand bargain" is killed and Social Security and veterans' benefits are spared - apparently these are all the same political event - then the Pentagon budget will be cut instead. And that means that at long last, we're effectively having the "guns vs. butter" debate in the United States that we have been so long denied. And that's not all. We have a new way to talk about the Pentagon budget, that every American can easily grasp. We can talk about the Pentagon budget by using the President's proposed cuts to Social Security and veterans' benefits as the unit of measurement.
  • According to the Congressional Budget Office, the President's proposal to use the "chained CPI" to calculate cost of living increases would save the government $127 billion over ten years by cutting Social Security and $36 billion over ten years by cutting "programs affecting veterans and the poorest elderly and disabled." That's a grand total of $163 billion over ten years from hitting seniors, veterans, and the disabled. So, now we have a new unit of measurement for talking about the Pentagon budget. Anything in the Pentagon budget that costs $163 billion over ten years costs as much as President Obama proposes to save by hitting seniors, veterans, and the disabled. Let us consider just three examples.
  • The key takeaway from all these numbers is that compared to the bloated Pentagon budget, the proposed savings from whacking seniors, veterans, and the disabled are chump change, not worth bothering with. The crucial thing to remember in all this is that none of us needs to come up with a specific plan to replace cuts to Social Security and veterans benefits with Pentagon cuts. Cutting the Pentagon budget instead - the sequester - is the default option, the status quo. All we have to do if we prefer Pentagon cuts to cuts in Social Security and veterans benefits is to kill the grand bargain. The Pentagon can then propose what mix of ending the war in Afghanistan, buying fewer or cheaper fighter planes, cutting contracting, closing foreign military bases, and retiring expensive generals it prefers to stay within its new budget. And then we can decide if we're ok with that, or prefer something else.
Paul Merrell

Military Industry Lobbyists Manufacture Fake Tea Party Outrage Against Cutting Defense ... - 0 views

www.republicreport.org/...tea-party-lobbyist-military

corporate welfare grassroots co-option

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 May 12 - No Cached
  • Military industry lobbyists are using the Tea Party as props to fight back against defense cuts. Companies that benefit from tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, many of which are for unnecessary and wasteful programs, are attempting to co-opt political support as they desperately try to maintain their pork barrel contracts. Take, for example, the “Coalition for the Common Defense,” an ad hoc project launched last fall to develop “grass-roots lobbying” to prevent “automatic budget cuts known as sequestration that will slash defense spending by as much as $600 billion over 10 years,” according to Roll Call.
  • Republic Report took a look at who’s behind the campaign, and unsurprisingly, K Street lobbyists with weapons-maker clients and military industry companies are playing a pivotal role: – Cord Sterling is the vice president for legislative affairs at the Aerospace Industry Association, a lobbying group that represents Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Honeywell, L-3 Communications, and other defense industry corporations. He has participated in events for the Coalition for the Common Defense, thanking the group for helping stave off the looming defense cuts. The Aerospace Industry Association spent $2,181,383 lobbying the federal government last year. – The campaign is managed by the Center for Security Policy, a think tank that is governed by a board of directors with deep ties to the defense industry. Board member Lt. Col. Marlin L. Hefti (Ret.) is a vice president at Van Scoyoc Associates, a lobbying firm that represents over two dozen defense company clients, including Lockheed Martin and Humvee manufacturer, the Renco Group. Board members J.P. London and Bruce J. Brotman are executives with other defense companies.
Paul Merrell

Article: New War Budget & Strategy Announced by Obama Team | OpEdNews - 0 views

www.opednews.com/..._Fear_Military-140225-682.html

war & peace U.S. military spending Obama Hagel

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Secretary of War Chuck Hagel yesterday announced the Obama administration's Pentagon budget proposal for the coming year.  Despite mandates for cuts in military spending after agreements with Congress under sequestration, Hagel actually calls for an increase of more than $115 billion for war making. The Hagel budget basically calls for cuts in Army ground forces and cutbacks in military pay, housing and commissary facilities on bases.  Life for the enlisted will become more difficult.   The Pentagon is also calling for the closing of a few National Guard posts in some states.   Hagel calls for 'sustaining' the Pentagon's nuclear triad - air, ground, and sea delivery systems of nuclear weapons.  Also called for is an increase in drones and robotic forces as well as significant expansion in cyber warfare capabilities.   Wall Street immediately reacted by joyfully giving Lockheed-Martin all-time high stock gains.  The writing on the wall is clear - cuts in troop levels and increase in high-tech space directed war-making capability.
  • We will see an expansion of US "hidden" wars in the near future and the Obama budget reflects this reality.  While Hagel wants to pare back the size of the active-duty military by 13% and the reserves by 5% in coming years he would boost the size of Special Operations forces by about 6%.  The plan is to add more than 3,000 personnel to the kinds of special ops forces teams that reportedly killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan.  These same clandestine forces now operate in more than 75 countries around the world.  In his film "Dirty Wars" investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill reports on the largely unaccountable Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) that is now doing targeted assassinations, destabilization, and training of right-wing and terrorist forces used by the US in places like Ukraine, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and beyond. The corporate oligarchy is moving rapidly to consolidate their total control of the people around the world and the US is playing its role of "security export" rather well. Mainstream media reports of the Hagel announcement also tag two key places on the planet that will receive special emphasis from this new budget.  Those are the African continent and the Asia-Pacific.  This is where the long-range military operations planning and funding are heading.
Paul Merrell

West's antiquated unipolar world collides with the East's vision of a mulipolar future.... - 0 views

journal-neo.org/...s-vision-of-a-mulipolar-future

war & peace Ukraine banksters

shared by Paul Merrell on 21 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • For years the West has been cultivating a proxy political machine inside of Ukraine for the purpose of peeling the nation away from its historical and socioeconomic ties to Russia. The deep relationship between Western corporate-financier interests on Wall Street and in London and the opposition in Ukraine are best summarized in PR Weeks “Analysis: PR gets trodden underfoot as sands shift in Ukraine.” In the article, the involvement of some of the most notorious corporate lobbying firms on Earth, including Bell Pottinger and the Podesta Group, are revealed to have been involved in Ukraine’s internal affairs since the so-called “Orange Revolution” in 2004 – a coup admittedly orchestrated by the West and in particular the US government.  The article chronicles (and defends) the continuing, unabated meddling of the West up to and including the most recent turmoil consuming Ukraine.    PR Week’s article revealed that heavily funded networks propping up the proxy regime in Kiev are sponsored by “individuals and private companies who support stronger EU-Ukraine relations.” It is these Western corporate-financier interests, not Ukrainian aspirations for “democracy” and “freedom,” that kicked off the “Euromaidan” mobs in the first place – and will be the driving force that misshapes and deforms the regions of western Ukraine now overrun by the West’s proxies.  To the east in Ukraine, people are prominently pro-Russian, sharing closer cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic ties to Russia as well as long historical parallels. They have welcomed moves by Russia to counter the coup in Kiev and protect eastern Ukraine from the corrosive influence that will grow as the West further entrenches itself.
  • With the vacant chair of deposed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych still warm, the tentacles of Western corporate-financier interests have already wound themselves around Kiev and have begun to squeeze.  Chevron, which had signed a multi-billion dollar deal with Ukraine in November, 2013, was operating in the west of Ukraine, and alongside other Western energy giants such as ExxonMobil and Shell. The deals were part of President Yanukovych’s apparent gravitation toward the West and impending integration with the EU which was then suddenly overturned in favor with re-cementing ties with Russia. Western oil giants clearly saw the benefit of backing a putsch that would leave the western half firmly in the orbit of the US, UK, and EU. They can not only continue their business on the western edge of Ukraine, but expand their interests unabated across the country now that a capitulating, puppet regime sits in Kiev.   While Western big-oil plans to move in and siphon billions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is already planning deep cuts in social benefits as part of a staggering austerity regime to restructure financially the seized western region of Ukraine, and if possible, all of Ukraine proper.
  • RT reported in its article, “Pensions in Ukraine to be halved – sequestration draft,” that: The self-proclaimed government in Kiev is reportedly planning to cut pensions by 50 percent as part of unprecedented austerity measures to save Ukraine from default. With an “empty treasury”, reduction of payments might take place in March.  According to the draft document obtained by Kommersant-Ukraine, social payments will be the first to be reduced. The proxy regime set up in Kiev has already indicated its eager acceptance to all IMF conditions. The fate of western Ukraine will be no different than other members of the European Union preyed upon by the corporate-financier interests that created the supranational consolidation in the first place. The reduction of a multipolar Europe into a unipolar, supranational consolidation which can be easily and collectively looted is a microcosm of what the West’s Fortune 500 plan as part of their global unipolar order.  
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  • The natural resources, human capital, and geopolitical advantages found within the borders of Ukraine, will now become the natural resources, human capital, and geopolitical advantages of Chevron, BP, Monsanto, a myriad of defense contractors, telecom corporations, and other familiar brands seen marauding across the planet leaving in its wake destitution, socioeconomic disparity, and perpetual division they intentionally sow in order to protect their holdings from any form of unified or organized opposition.    No matter how obvious the West’s game may be to some, had Ukraine fallen entirely under the control of Western interests, a multitude of excuses could and would have been peddled to explain the unraveling of Ukrainian society in terms that would exonerate the corporate-financier interests truly driving the crisis. But Ukraine has not entirely fallen to the West, and because of that, the planned decimation of western Ukraine, its economy, and its sovereignty will stand out in stark contrast to the eastern region that has remained beyond the West’s reach and within the orbit of Russia’s multipolar vision of the future.  
Paul Merrell

Hagel Said to Be Stepping Down as Defense Chief Under Pressure - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ense-chief-under-pressure.html

war & peace Hagel Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 24 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is stepping down under pressure, the first cabinet-level casualty of the collapse of President Obama’s Democratic majority in the Senate and the struggles of his national security team amid an onslaught of global crises.The president, who is expected to announce Mr. Hagel’s resignation in a Rose Garden appearance on Monday, made the decision to ask his defense secretary — the sole Republican on his national security team — to step down last Friday after a series of meetings over the past two weeks, senior administration officials said.
  • The officials described Mr. Obama’s decision to remove Mr. Hagel, 68, as a recognition that the threat from the Islamic State would require a different kind of skills than those that Mr. Hagel was brought on to employ. A Republican with military experience who was skeptical about the Iraq war, Mr. Hagel came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestration.But now “the next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus,” one administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. He insisted that Mr. Hagel was not fired, saying that the defense secretary initiated discussions about his future two weeks ago with the president, and that the two men mutually agreed that it was time for him to leave.
  • But Mr. Hagel’s aides had maintained in recent weeks that he expected to serve the full four years as defense secretary. His removal appears to be an effort by the White House to show that it is sensitive to critics who have pointed to stumbles in the government’s early response to several national security issues, including the Ebola crisis and the threat posed by the Islamic State.Even before the announcement of Mr. Hagel’s removal, Obama officials were speculating on his possible replacement. At the top of the list are Michèle Flournoy, a former under secretary of defense; Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former officer with the Army’s 82nd Airborne; and Ashton B. Carter, a former deputy secretary of defense.
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  • Whatever the case, Mr. Hagel struggled to fit in with Mr. Obama’s close circle and was viewed as never gaining traction in the administration after a bruising confirmation fight among his old Senate colleagues, during which he was criticized for seeming tentative in his responses to sharp questions. Continue reading the main story Recent Comments Janet Camp 10 minutes ago The “Ebola Crisis”? How is the Defense Secretary responsible for this bit of manufactured hoo-hah? Or for the rise of IS, for that matter?... Dale 10 minutes ago Somehow Obama always chooses the least of the least for his cabinet. StandingO 10 minutes ago Expect appointment of another known figure from Congress who is similarly in tune with Obama's views. Nancy Pelosi might well be the one. See All Comments Write a comment He never really shed that pall after arriving at the Pentagon, and in the past few months he has largely ceded the stage to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, who officials said initially won the confidence of Mr. Obama with his recommendation of military action against the Islamic State.
  • Paul Merrell on 24 Nov 14
     
    Obama has definitely turned his back on winding down U.S. foreign wars.  Notice that General Dempsey now stands accused by anonymous White House officials of having recommended "military action against the Islamic State." I doubt that. The Pentagon's focus seems lately to have been on making sure that the world knows they predicted that war against ISIL would fail. 
Paul Merrell

Collapse of Ukraine Government: Prime Minister Yatsenyuk Resigns amidst Pressures Exert... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5393168

war & peace Ukraine government-collapse

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk announced his resignation in the Rada (Parliament) and that of the entire Cabinet on Thursday, July 24.  This decision was taken following the withdrawal of two parties from the coalition government and the non-adoption of two important pieces of legislation, which had been demanded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “I announce my resignation after the collapse of the coalition and the blocking of government initiatives … “In connection with the breakup of the parliamentary coalition, as well as non-adoption of a number of important bills, I announce my resignation,” The resignation of the Prime Minister signifies the collapse of the government and the resignation of the entire cabinet. “But the cabinet members will continue fulfilling their duties until a new coalition is formed in the Rada.”
  • On July 24th, the Rada failed to support the government’s bill pertaining to the 2014 budget sequestration, which had been demanded by the IMF on behalf of Kiev’s external creditors. The disbursement by the IMF of the “Second Tranche” of a 17 billion dollar policy based loan was conditional upon the prior adoption of this legislation.
  • The national economy is in crisis, the political structures of the country are in total disarray, all of which is occurring in the immediate wake of the Malaysian Airlines MH17 crash in Eastern Ukraine. The two parties which left the coalition are The Neo-Nazi Svoboda party and the Centre Right Ukraine Democratic Alliance for Reform (UDAR) Party led by former champion boxer Vitali Klitschko.
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  • The entire country is in an impasse. No money will be forthcoming from the IMF until this legislation is adopted. In the meantime, Ukraine remains on the blacklist of its external creditors. Moreover, a controversial draft law on reforming the country’s gas transportation system was rejected (Itar-Tass, July 24, 2014). Both bills were tied into the government’s negotiations with both the EU and the IMF.
  • President Poroshenko (left) has intimated that the resignation of the cabinet has paved the way for a process of meaningful political restructuring:  “Society wants a full reset of state authorities,” said Mr Poroshenko. What is implied by Poroshenko’s statement is that the parliamentary process is slated to become defunct inasmuch as Rada is obligated to adopt the legislation demanded by the IMF and the European Union. And if the Rada does not adopt the legislation, the composition of the Parliament will be changed through a process of outright political manipulation. The 2014 budget project demanded by the IMF includes massive cuts in social spending coupled with increased allocations to the Armed Forces. Its adoption will contribute (virtually overnight) to a further process of the impoverishment of the Ukraine population.
  • Yatsenyuk intimated in his resignation speech that the State was bankrupt and that failure to abide by IMF demands would create social chaos: “The fact is that today you failed to vote for the laws, and I have nothing (with which) to pay wages of policemen, doctors, teachers; nothing to buy a rifle with, nothing to fuel an armored personnel carrier with. Today you failed to take a decision to fill the gas storages to allow us to live through the winter, to at last free ourselves from dependence on Russian gas,” (Rada, July 24, 2014)
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Jul 14
     
    The American coup-imposed government of Ukraine goes bankrupt and collapses. 
Paul Merrell

Rents Are Rising But People Aren't Making Any More Money - 0 views

thinkprogress.org/...rent-up-wages-flat

financial-collapse housing-rental cost-of-living

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • The average apartment rent hit $1,099 in the second quarter of the year, new data from a real estate research firm shows, as the gap between the typical American’s cost of living and the wages she earns from working continued to widen.
  • Average rents rose by 0.8 percent from March to June, and are now up 3.4 percent over the past year, according to Reis Inc. data. In total, the average monthly rent price is now up almost 15 percent since 1990, after adjusting for inflation. By comparison, the median household income has grown exactly zero percent since 1990, the Wall Street Journal notes:
  • Even those gloomy national figures paint a rosier picture than the reality that tens of millions of American families face. If you do the math using the top-line numbers, rents still seem affordable: the average calculates out to about 26 percent of a person’s yearly income going toward rent. But that’s not how it actually operates on the ground. A full 50 percent of American renters spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, which is what researchers define as the cutoff for affordable housing. More than a quarter face extremely unaffordable housing costs, meaning they spend more than half their income on housing. A New York Times and Zillow analysis found that median rent was above the 30 percent affordability threshold in 90 different U.S. cities, even before this most recent quarterly rise in rent prices. Rents are outpacing earnings in part because the demand for rental housing has exploded since the financial crisis. Foreclosed homeowners and others unable to afford or obtain a mortgage are turning instead to the rental market. Cuts to government housing aid spending and the broader stagnation of wages for working people increase the reliance on rental even more.
Paul Merrell

The War Against Austerity | The American Conservative - 0 views

www.theamericanconservative.com/...the-war-against-austerity

war & peace Defense-spending

shared by Paul Merrell on 08 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • From the president to the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and every Republican and Democrat at the top of Congress’ defense committees, they all agree: “austerity” at the Pentagon must end. American forces are not getting enough money for training; weapons are short of maintenance; our forces are shrinking, and the defense industrial base is struggling. The Islamic State’s success in the Middle East makes the argument for a bigger Pentagon budget compelling at the strategic level. One au courant pundit articulated this conventional wisdom saying “the [budget] cuts intensify a growing global concern that America is in decline.”
  • Joining the crowd, President Obama said the “Draconian” cuts in the Pentagon budget must be reversed. The fix is in. The Pentagon is to be rescued from the spending cuts imposed by the three-year-old Budget Control Act of 2011 and its sequestration process. The rationale for reduction has been overtaken by world events, precipitous declines in military readiness, contraction of our forces and badly needed hardware modernization. These arguments collapse under scrutiny.
  • Paul Merrell on 08 Nov 14
     
    Good, hard criticism and suggestions for reform in U.S. military spending. Backed by hard statistics and good graphs. But still missing the number I really want to see: What is our interventionist foreign policy costing us as opposed to a foreign policy that was aimed at peace, i.e., defensive only.  Interference in the internal affairs of foreign nations is prohibited by international law, treaties that the U.S. is party to. If the U.S. abided by that law instead of inflicting violence all over the globe, it is a certainty that "defense" spending could at least be halved. 
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