Chuck Spinney: Buy Before You Fly … How to Suck Money During Sequestration […Legalized Treason?]

The joint-service F-35 strike fighter is the Pentagon’s largest program. In fact, it is the most expensive procurement program in the Pentagon’s history.  It is also an unfolding disaster that is well documented, but of almost unimaginable proportions.  And yet, the F-35 is impervious to budget cutbacks in sequesterland.  Not surprisingly, among the cognoscenti of …

Chuck Spinney: In Face of Sequestration, SecDef Allows USAF to Slip Lockheed $6.9 Billion More — At Point Does Malfeasance Become Treason?

You really have to love these contract terms, “indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity,” especially in a time of austerity economics. Nation.Time.com, February 21, 2013 Military Spending Sequestration is for Sissies: $6.9 Billion More for the F-22 By Mark Thompson Pentagon officials took to PBS and the Pentagon press room to warn Wednesday about the impending sequester’s …

Reflections on the Inability of Washington to Think with Integrity

Power corrupts, no doubt about it.  What most people miss is that it is not just about financial corruption that explicitly mis-directs scarce resources to benefit the few over the many (with Congress taking its standard 5% kick-back for delivering earmarks).  Power also corrupts intellect.  People forget how to think.  They begin talking among themselves, …

Marcus Aurelius: Pentagon Plays the 800,000 Cuts Card, Dishonest to the Bone

Pentagon gets to work planning for severe cuts Wants to be ready if sequestration occurs Defense officials have begun “serious planning” for automatic spending cuts that could force the Pentagon to lay off hundreds of thousands of civilian workers as it reduces its budget by $500 billion over the next 10 years. “We are doing …

DefDog: Panetta at Press Club — Pathetic! & Comment by Robert Steele with Remedial Reading List

While touted as strategy, I fail to see any, more like wishful thinking and hope…..and as we all know, Hope is Not a Strategy…. Remarks by Secretary Panetta at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LEON E. PANETTA:  Thank you very much, Theresa, for that kind introduction.  And thank you for the …