The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Believe this will be in eight parts. Worth following, one can only weep.
Disruptive Technology and Reforming the Pentagon Establishment—Part I
Disruptive Technology and Reforming the Pentagon Establishment—Part II: The Origin of MRAPs in DoD
OMB's Stockman: “We're At The Fiscal Endgame”
To those on the hill and elsewhere who suggest this growing ‘fiscal cliff' and ‘debt ceiling' crisis will all get solved, former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director David Stockman tells Bloomberg TV that “they will punt, punt, punt and kick the can with partial solutions driven by eleventh hour crisis-based extensions that will go on for the whole of the next term!” When asked whether this economy will be mired in the doldrums, he rather ominously states “it will be worse, because we will be in recession” and notes that when the lame ducks re-look at the budget numbers with a realistic recession (instead of the current assumption of no recession within 12 years) it will be far worse and in a political environment where ‘we cannot possibly raise taxes – and we cannot possibly cut spending'. With a 78% disapproval rating for the ‘do nothing' Congress, Stockman is surprised that 16% somehow approve – approve of what? His warning is that unlike in past periods, today “we are completely paralyzed, there is an ideological divide on taxes and entitlement like we've never had before” and while he realizes that “the debt problem doesn't become a debt problem until the market suddenly have a wake up call and realize that if the Fed doesn't keep printing, it's game over.”
Continue reading “Josh Kilbourn: David Stockman on Political Gridlock & Irresponsibility”
Condi Rice’s Ties to Turkish Spy Ring
The Story that Should Remove Condi Rice from Consideration for Vice President
Washington (VT) Condi Rice, as with most Washington insiders, has a secret that can take her down.
In 2002, Rice “crossed the line” in preventing the investigation of a major spy operation in the White House. For the first time, facts just released and eyewitness testimony make Rice a political liability or worse.
YouTube (2:52) The Union: the business behind getting high
YouTube (1:32:11) The Union: The Business Behind Getting High – Full Movie – High Quality
YouTube (1:27:15) Marijuana a Chronic History (Full Version)
YouTube (2:05:19) THE BEST MARIJUANA SPEECH EVER! (MARC EMERY)
YouTube (21:32) The War on Drugs is A Epic Failure!
Phi Beta Iota: The decriminalization of marijuana is the one ace left in the Obama Administration's scattered desk of cards.
See Also:
An important and informative Tony Capaccio article (from Bloomberg; shown below) came out today. It summarizes (accurately) CBO's analysis of the budget effects of sequester: if sequester were to occur, the Pentagon's “base” (non-war) budget would be $469 billion for 2013. This is slightly above what was spent in 2006, and it is “larger than the average base budget during [the Reagan era of] the 1980s.” (See page vi and the table on page 11 of the attached.)
This amount is also significantly more than the Pentagon received, on average, during the Cold War, and it is multiples of the defense budgets of China, Russia, Iran, Syria, and North Korea–combined.
This $469 billion is the same amount that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta calls “doomsday,” that House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) calls a “catastrophe” and that others, both Democrats and Republicans, want to rescue the Pentagon from–by adding money above the $469 billion level.
These same people will likely argue that this new CBO report is a reason to spend more money, not less. The new report, “Long-Term Implications of the 2013 Future Years Defense Program,” is CBO's annual update of its re-estimate of what it would actually cost to implement the Pentagon's programs in the “FYDP,” in this case the 2013-2017 version. Basically, like its previous iterations, CBO says DOD would need $53 billion more than it received in 2012 for each of the next five years to accuratey fund all its programs, as currently planned and implemented.
Ergo, the spending advocates will argue DOD needs more money, not less. Their logic is that nothing in the Pentagon should change–other than the amount of money it receives.
How can it be that more money than Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush spent on defense, tens of billions more than spent all through the Cold War and multiples of what any conceivable combination of opponents spend on defense are all a catastrophe for the Pentagon?
Such questions are prompted by Tony Capaccio's article and the new CBO report.
When the House of Representatives debates the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for FY 2013 next week, will these basic questions to be asked, or will there be only more hysteria and table pounding for more money?
Capaccio's interesting article follows; CBO's intriguing report is attached and at http://cbo.gov/publication/
Pentagon Would Keep 2006 Spending Power Under Cuts, CBO Finds
By Tony Capaccio, July 12 (Bloomberg)
Read CBO report: CBO on 2013 FYDP
Phi Beta Iota: The US Government continues to lack intelligence and integrity on the fundamentals. The truth about defense spending, defense abuse of defense personnel, and defense corruption across all acquisition programs from small arms to big ships, is relatively easy to document–what is less easy is to get anyone to pay attention to the truth–the truth today lacks a broad constituency.
See Also:
2000 Presidential Leadership and National Security Policy Making
2001 Threats, Strategy, and Force Structure: An Alternative Paradigm for National Security
Phi Beta Iota: they have been scorned out of existing twice now, but evidently Mike Bloomberg and his friends have not given up kludging together three failures to try to make lemonade, all three corrupt to the bone:
Independent Voters / Jackie Salit, well-funded stalking horse for Bloomberg, does not play well with others and specifically ignores both grass-root Independents and the six small parties.
Americans Elect, despite a great deal of money, could not overcome the abject obviousness of its internal corruption and the abysmal even shocking ineptitude of its web design and content management teams.
No Labels — the cartoon says it all. These people really do not “get” the travesty of their dismissal of the six small parties that have been blocked from ballot access, or the shallowness of their general intellect. No Labels, No Brains, No Balls.
Below the line is the email that went out across the land today. What is shocking is the number of progressives angry at Obama who really think No Labels might be on to something. For an example of what an honest viable alternative to the two-party tyranny might look like, see We the People Reform Coalition. We can still save 2012, but it will require organized people, not organized false flag money.
ON A CONSTRUCTIVE NOTE: If NO LABELS and Americans Elect would come together to sponsor an Electoral Reform Summit in early September 2012, they could restore the integrity of America. They are probably not capable of making that ethical and intellectual leap, but if they did, they would in one instant achieve their alleged goals dishonored behind closed doors, and open the way for the Second Republic. Add the six small parties, Occupy and the Tea Party and the Independents without Jackie Salit playing games, and it is “game over.” There is NOTHING stopping the election of a coalition cabinet and a reform ticket in November 2012 except a lack of FOCUS by all those who share the same desire: to create a prosperous America at peace, to restore America the Beautiful. We are the passive silent majority at this time. We need to be the active vocal majority for the next 90 days. 90 days.
See Also:
THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth & Trust
Steele at Hackers on Two-Party Tyranny & Battle for the Soul of the Republic
Continue reading “NO LABELS Tries Again — Still Corrupt, Still Clueless”
What the U.S. Government Knew About Najlaa
Huffington Post, 11 July 2012
A bit over a year ago a report I co-wrote, documenting human trafficking and abuse of workers by Najlaa International Catering Services, a KBR subcontractor, was published by the Project on Government Oversight.
The internal company documents I uncovered revealed, among other things, that U.S. authorities were aware of the deplorable living conditions Najlaa workers endured back in 2008. To their credit both the U.S. government and KBR both worked to pressure Najlaa to fix things once they were alerted to the problem.
But, thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union, newly released documents reveal that the U.S. government and KBR were even more aware of the problem than previously known.
In July 2011 the ACLU filed a lawsuit demanding that the government release documents relating to the trafficking and the abusive treatment of foreign workers on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case sought documents from the Departments of State and Defense that detail audits and complaints about military contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bear in mind this is hardly an isolated problem. As the New York Times reported:
