Winslow Wheeler: Graphics Lie — and Tell the Truth — Actual Pentagon Budget Part II

“If Congress goes along [by approving President Obama’s 2014 DOD budget request], Pentagon spending levels will exceed any previous high by any other president in any year in peace or in war since the death of President Roosevelt in 1945, except for President George W. Bush from 2006 to 2008.” “…current military spending is lapping …

Yoda: US Government Made News Approved for Public — Robert Steele Comments

Complex, force is. U.S. Repeals Propaganda Ban, Spreads Government-Made News To Americans Posted By John Hudson Sunday, July 14, 2013 – 7:06 PM Share For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government’s mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the …

Mini-Me: $75 Billion a Year, and US IC Still Cuts and Pastes Without Updating Years’ Old Information

Huh? US Intelligence Report a Cut-Paste on Chinese Missiles College students can be flunked for cut-and-paste reports, think tankers can be embarrassed, Defense News staff writers can be fired, but not, apparently, members of the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC). Most of its so-called “updated” report, 2013 Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat, which …

Neal Rauhauser: Steele on NATO, AIPAC Replaces US IC — Steele Comments

Some months ago I had the great pleasure of adding OSINT godfather Robert David Steele as a LinkedIn contact. We’ve progressed from that to occasional phone calls and regular emails, pointing out interesting technology and events to each other. NATO 4.0: Key Challenges AND Solutions was published with this short note, asking for broad consideration …

Chuck Spinney: Has the US Lost Its Grand Strategic Mind?

As Esam Al-Amin explained here, Mohamad Morsi made some colossal blunders during his one year rule of Egypt, as its democratically elected president.  He was elected in what most observers regard as a reasonably fair election. But the exclusive report by Al Jazeera (also attached below) reveals that the United States — which claims to support democracy …

Steven Aftergood: Congressional Research Service

BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE A long-running personnel dispute at the Congressional Research Service offers up conflicting visions of the proper role of the congressional support agency, which provides policy and legal analysis to Congress. In 2009, then-CRS Director Daniel Mulhollan fired then-CRS Division Chief Col. Morris Davis, a former Guantanamo prosecutor, …