DELEITURAS

By Joseph Hammond

Sgt. Tara-Lyn Baker is the first woman to become part of the frozen few.

Over six grueling weeks, Sgt. Baker demonstrated a range of combat skills in snow and ice to complete the winter mountain leaders course at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center near Bridgeport, California.

A video published by the U.S. Marine Corp Times shows the 150 pound Marine executing maneuvers and training exercises. These include carrying a 60 to 90-pound backpack while skiing up steep mountains carrying heavy packs, shooting with deadly accuracy in the snow. Only the most “gung-ho” Marines are up to the challenge.

During the course Marines learn how to fight, survive, and maneuver in sub-zero temperatures and is one of the most physically demanding training programs in the U.S. military. Military operations in mountainous areas add the challenge of verticality.

Like some of her fellow Marines, Baker said suffered from frostbite and hypothermia. “We learn how to overcome it,” she said.

Baker came to the school – located  6,800 feet above sea level – as a Marine Mechanic.

In the video, Baker says she’s proud of her accomplishment.

The Marines is the last branch of the U.S. armed services that still enforces gender segregation in boot camp but, in January an integrated a Marine training battalion was formed of one male and five male platoons for the first time.

Lt. Marina Hierl, 24, became the first female Marine to lead a platoon last year after becoming the first woman to complete the Marines’ 13-week Infantry Officer Course in 2017.

The Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center is located at a higher elevation than Camp Ethan Allen Training Site used by the U.S. Army (1,200 feet elevation) or US Navy Mountain Warfare Training Camp Michael Monsoor (3,500 feet elevation). Though at all centers actual training operations are often conducted in the surrounding areas. Specialized American soldiers also attend similar programs in allied countries.

The facility was opened in 1951 to train U.S. soldiers for the Korean War. During the Cold War, the facility was used to train soldiers to protect Norway and the rest of NATO’s Northern Flank. The facility had taken on increased importance since September 11, 2001, when it was used in pre-deployment training for U.S. soldiers involved in Operation Enduring Freedom in mountainous Afghanistan.

In one training scenario often used by the Marines, the trainee is meant to jump with their skis, poles and a give gallon pack into a hole cut into a frozen lake.

“When you jump in, you lose your breath, you kind of lose your head,” said Sgt Aaron Jensen, a student of the school in a 2015 interview.

The Marine has to throw the pack out of the water and swim to the edge. Once there, the Marine must verbally request permission to get out of the water.

Then the training kicks in – participants roll in powdered snow to get the water off their clothes before a final sprint to warming tents to change and dry themselves.

“You learn how to survive, you learn how to deal with the cold,” Baker said in a video posted on the service’s Twitter.

Photo Cred: A version of this photo was posted by the U.S. Marine Corp Twitter account here https://twitter.com/USMC/status/1084253698186854400

ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 14, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff said last year that, “The most significant threat to our national security is our debt…” and a new poll sponsored by Concerned Veterans for America and conducted by The Winston Group, reveals that the majority of military voters agree with his statement and believe debt is a growing and insidious threat to our national security.

Pete Hegseth , CEO of Concerned Veterans for America said the following:

“It’s not surprising that the majority of military voters are aware of Admiral Mullen’s powerful statement. Our warfighters and veterans understand that our military might comes from economic strength. That’s why we’re fighting for policies here at home that will preserve the precious freedom and liberty we risked our lives to defend.”

Key findings:

• Concern about the future of the U.S. economy is reflected in military voters’ views that economic threats are greater dangers to national security than terror threats.

  Greatest threats to national security (combined first and second choices):

  •      Economy – 42 %
  •      Debt – 30 %
  •      Cuts to the military – 30 %
  •      Traditional powers like China, Russian and Iran – 30 %
  •      Foreign terror groups – 29 %
  •      Cyber terror – 14 %

• 54% of military voters were aware of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mullen’s statement the national debt was the most significant threat to our national security. There was a clear agreement with his statement in that 71% agreed and only 20% disagreed.  Among those who agreed, 46% strongly agreed.
• There are serious concerns about where the U.S. is headed both longer term and with economic threats to the future of the country. In thinking about the U.S. economy in the next 20 years, 54% believe the economy will either be weaker (34%) or about the same as it is now (20%).
• Takeaway: Military voters view the economy and fiscal issues as part of the overall security of the country, are clearly interested in the national discussion about the economy, and are looking for solutions to address the economy and debt.

This survey was conducted  July 18-22, 2012  and the results noted above are from 800 military voters both veterans and active duty.

Suspected murderer and kidnapper Jake Thomas Patterson determined he would abduct long-missing teen Jayme Closs after he watched her board the school bus, court documents maintain.

Patterson watched Closs get on a school bus one day while he was driving to work and knew she would be his victim, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday, The Associated Press reported. “[He] knew that was the girl he was going to take,” Patterson told investigators.

The admission comes after Patterson allegedly shot and killed Jayme’s parents on Oct. 15 before kidnapping Jayme.

Patterson was identified as a suspect Friday, according to NBC News.

Prosecutors charged Patterson with murder, armed robbery and kidnapping Monday, according to AP.

Patterson allegedly shot Jayme Closs’s father, James Closs, on the doorstep of the family home located close to Barron, Wisconsin. After hearing the gunshot, Jayme Closs and her mother, Denise Closs, hid in a bathtub with the shower curtain drawn and the door to the bathroom locked.

Patterson broke through the door and taped Jayme’s mouth before shooting her mother through the head. He drove Jayme to his residence thereafter and kept her hidden for nearly three months.

Patterson hid Jayme under a bed surrounded by heavy objects and weights obscuring her from view when company came over. He directed her to be silent, and threatened to hurt her if she did not do so, AP reported.

Patterson had gone to the house on two prior occasions with intent to kill and kidnap, and abandoned his plans because the house was too active on those occasions, the complaint alleges. Patterson and Jayme Closs had never met prior to the incident, authorities say.

Jayme Closs was missing for 87 days before she was spotted Thursday after escaping from Patterson’s residence. Police swarmed Patterson’s house after a neighbor called 911 to notify authorities that Jayme had been found.

Prior to Jayme Closs’s escape, police received over 3,500 tips about her disappearance, none of which led to her discovery, AP reported.

Patterson has no criminal record in Wisconsin.

No charges of sexual assault have been levied against Patterson.

On November 20th, extremely liberal Washington Compost blogger Ezra Klein published a cretinous, completely wrong blogpost titled “The sequester’s defense cuts aren’t that scary, in one graph”. Therein, Klein falsely claims that the sequester’s defense cuts would be mild and would not gut the military:

“The defense cuts contained in the sequester would be a “disaster,” says Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Implementing them would “would risk hollowing out our force,” says Army Gen. Martin Dempsey. It would be a “crippling blow to our military,” says Sen. John McCain.

But not as bad a blow as the military has faced in the past. This graph comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and it shows real military spending since the Korean War (“real” in that the graph adjusts for inflation):

As you can see, the post-9/11 rise in military spending was larger than the rise during Vietnam and during the Cold War. And even if we implement every single cut in the sequester, the fall in spending would be less than the military experienced after Korea, Vietnam, or the Cold War.

Of course, almost everyone expects that the sequester will, eventually, be disarmed, and the actual cuts to the military will be substantially smaller than what you’re seeing on this graph. That means that despite the incredible build-up after 9/11, the fall in spending will be much less than it was after Korea, Vietnam, or the Cold War…”

He also claimed that nondefense discretionary spending will be “gutted” by the sequester and that it “doesn’t have nearly as much political protection.”

His claims are all blatant lies.

Let’s start with that utterly forged, completely wrong graph from the CSIS. It purports to show that US military spending rose above $700 bn in FY2009-FY2011 and that it will still be at $500 bn after sequestration, even in January FY2013, let alone later.

These numbers are completely wrong. Total US military spending, including GWOT and DOE defense-related program costs, NEVER reached, let alone exceeded, $700 bn at any point during the last 67 years. Never. It peaked at $688 bn in FY2011; in FY2010, it was $664 bn. Furthermore, if sequestration kicks in, the base defense budget will shrink to $469 bn in January 2013 and will stay below $500 bn for the remainder of the sequestration decade (and probably even afterwards), and even adding GWOT/OCO and DOE military spending does not bring the military budget up to $500 bn, let alone above it, especially given that these two items are ALSO subject to sequestration. (Yes, you read that correctly: war funding and funding for the DOE’s defense-related programs are ALSO subject to sequestration. Which means the DOD will have to cut base defense programs even deeper than otherwise just to pay the war bills.)

Here’s a CBO graph showing the REAL impact of sequestration. It utterly refutes the fake CSIS graph Klein posted.

Furthermore, the sequester’s cut to the defense budget – $66 bn virtually overnight, plus cuts to GWOT and DOE nat-sec budgets – would, collectively, amount to DEEPER defense budget cuts than those that followed the end of the Vietnam War or the Cold War, although not the massacre that followed the end of the Korean War. Furthermore, they will occur while over 60,000 American troops are still in harms’ way in Afghanistan.

Moreover, these deep defense cuts will have a devastating impact on an already overstretched, overused, depleted military which must now recapitalize and replace its worn-out, obsolete equipment after over 11 years of nonstop war while still deterring many threats and protecting America as well as its crucial allies. See here and here, for example, if you don’t want to listen to professional military leaders and to veteran budget manager Leon Panetta.

Klein’s claim that defense is “politically protected” is also a blatant lie, and a very popular one. The fact is that, as I have repeatedly proven here, Republicans are NOT protecting defense and have never protected it (although I wish they would). They’ve already agreed to Sec. Gates’ killing of over 50 crucial weapon programs in 2009 and 2010; to New START ratification (i.e. to unilateral cuts in America’s nuclear arsenal); to Sec. Gates’s Efficiencies Initiative, worth $178 bn; and to the $487 bn defense cuts mandated by the first tier of the BCA. Any claim that defense spending is “politically protected” is a blatant lie.

Finally, Klein’s claim that domestic spending would be “gutted” under sequestration is also a blatant lie, as documented by Dustin Siggins here. Moreover, under sequestration, defense spending would bear over 60% of the budget cuts burden, while domestic discretionary spending would get less than 40% of the slack and would see cuts of less than $40 bn per year, distributed over many agencies. That’s not gutting. Gutting is what defense will see under sequestration.

But Siggins, while smacking down Ezra Klein, made several lies of his own, and thus displayed once again his own ignorance of defense issues.

It’s funny that Siggins, while smacking down Ezra Klein, displays his own utter ignorance.

1) Firstly, it is not true that there is “massive fraud, waste, and duplication in the defense budget”. There is some of it (as there is in the budget of every federal agency), but not “massive” or “a huge amount”. If you have evidence, Dustin, publish it immediately or zip your lips.

And no, crucial weapon programs like the Next Gen Bomber, missile defense systems, the V-22, or the Virginia class are not “waste”.

The claim that there is “massive fraud, waste and duplication” in the defense budget is spread only by 1) those who want to make deep cuts in it, regardless of the consequences, and want to deliberately mislead the public into thinking that such cuts can be done safely; and 2) those ignorant people who don’t know what they’re talking about.

2) Contracting services need to be reformed carefully and skillfully, not “drastically”.

3) Ezra Klein’s graph is utterly false. It purports to show that US military spending rose above $700 bn in FY2009-FY2011 and that it will still be at $500 bn after sequestration, even in January FY2013, let alone later.

These numbers are completely wrong. Total US military spending, including GWOT and DOE defense-related program costs, NEVER reached, let alone exceeded, $700 bn at any point during the last 67 years. Never. It peaked at $688 bn in FY2011; in FY2010, it was $664 bn. Furthermore, if sequestration kicks in, the base defense budget will shrink to $469 bn in January 2013 and will stay below $500 bn for the remainder of the sequestration decade (and probably even afterwards), and even adding GWOT/OCO and DOE military spending does not bring the military budget up to $500 bn, let alone above it, especially given that these two items are ALSO subject to sequestration. (Yes, you read that correctly: war funding and funding for the DOE’s defense-related programs are ALSO subject to sequestration. Which means the DOD will have to cut base defense programs even deeper than otherwise just to pay the war bills.)

Here’s a CBO graph showing the REAL impact of sequestration. It utterly refutes the fake CSIS graph Klein posted.

4) The claim that “the aforementioned cuts to defense spending are essential to help the nation avoid a calamitous fiscal collapse, as well as better serve the troops…” is a blatant lie.

No, these cuts are not “essential” to avoid a calamitous fiscal collapse. The sequester’s defense cuts ($60 bn per year), or even its total cuts ($120 bn per year), would barely make a dent in the annual federal budget deficit ($1.3 trillion per year), and would thus do NOTHING to prevent a “calamitous fiscal collapse”. All that sequestration would accomplish would be to GUT the US military.

Which brings me to my next point: the sequester’s cuts would be a huge DISSERVICE to the troops and a huge damage to national security. I’m not exaggerating. Here is a holistic analysis of what sequestration would mean for America’s defense: here, here, and here.

But of course, as a non-conservative, Siggins doesn’t care.

5) To say that defense spending is “constitutional” is a vast understatement. Under the Constitution, defense is the #1 Constitutional DUTY of the federal government, which is obligated to do whatever is necessary to provide for the country’s defense. Anything short of that is a dereliction of duty.

6) Deep defense cuts are NOT necessary to balance the budget, as proven by the budget plans of Chairman Ryan, the Republican Study Committee, Sen. Toomey, Sen. Lee, and the Heritage Foundation.

Early last February, JCPenney rolled out its “Fair and Square Everyday Pricing Plan”. It didn’t take long for push back from consumers, analysts, and just about everyone with an opinion, either. The primary complaints weren’t limited to the new pricing program, because in addition to price tag changes, the department store started radically changing floor-plans and reduced product selection in many locations. Couple that with the fact that consumers weren’t necessarily enthusiastic about shopping in general due to the economy, and it was a near disastrous combination for the corporation.

While JCPenney got at least a temporary reprieve from the Martha Stewart branding debacle with Macy’s, that doesn’t come close to undoing the damage by recently ousted CEO, Ron Johnson. They can console themselves at least a little that the dismissal cost them a paltry $148,924, but in all fairness (pun intended), that number should include the 25% losses in sales, and the 50% drop in stock values. Hindsight is 20/20, and one can only wonder now why JCPenney would think that Johnson could have helped to boost their sales the same way did with Apple stores. Comparing the two is like the proverbial comparison of “apples and oranges” – Apple products enjoy a base of loyal consumers that buy products simply because they are manufactured by the electronics giant. It’s also abundantly clear that it was huge mistake to give Johnson free reign to make changes to the department store’s brick and mortar operations at will. It’s been argued that he was fixing something that wasn’t broken, and should have been focusing on online sales.

So, to rectify all of this, JCPenney may very well be making another big mistake by bringing back former CEO, Myron Ullman. Nothing says a company has learned its lesson about past mistakes like bringing back someone that failed to address problems previously, even if that person could be considered the “lesser of two evils.” Yes, the colossal mistakes made by Johnson need to be rolled back, and it probably won’t hurt the bottom line at least temporarily, to appease consumers that were annoyed with the radical changes by assuring them that it will be going back to “business as usual.” But, if the future plans don’t include a sincere effort to compete in the online market, JCPenney can’t count on a long-term recovery. And that brings us to “the apology” ad campaign:

The transcript:

It’s no secret, recently JCPenney changed. Some changes you liked and some you didn’t, but what matters from mistakes is what we learn. We learned a very simple thing, to listen to you. To hear what you need, to make your life more beautiful. Come back to JCPenney, we heard you. Now, we’d love to see you.

The commercial encourages consumers to visit the corporate Facebook page, to offer their feedback. A quick review of their interactions with the public isn’t particularly encouraging though. Visitor comments run hot and cold, with quite a few consumers making suggestions about the company returning to old practices. But, this is Facebook, and it’s likely that responses would be radically different on other social media sites. Many of the comments are from older consumers, and while they are important to consider, the reality of the situation is that building a marketing plan based on feedback from age-limited niche will be yet another disaster. Bluntly, particularly if catering to Baby Boomers, that is a recipe for short-term success followed by a precipitous drop and flat-line. It can’t be assumed that JCPenney will be smart enough to avoid this either, since they’ve opted to re-hire Ullman. Only time will tell where this all leads, but if the past is any indication, consumers will get one thing they tend to enjoy for at least a little while – going out of business sales.

The White House says their tax increase will only affect the wealthiest Americans; those who can easily afford to pay more. But a little investigative reporting by ABC News reporter Jon Karl shows that, though a small percentage, the tax hikes will affect nearly 900,000 businesses.

 
 

• Bruce Ohr told Congress that he met with Glenn Simpson in August 2016, a claim that directly conflicts with what the Fusion GPS founder told Congress in his own testimony. 
• Simpson said that he met Ohr only after the 2016 election. The inconsistency has led one Republican to claim that Simpson is “in real legal jeopardy” over his testimony. 
• Ohr also testified that Simpson was the source for a heavily disputed allegation about conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell

Justice Department official Bruce Ohr’s congressional testimony undercuts testimony given by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson while officially confirming reports that Simpson the source of a heavily disputed allegation about conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell.

Ohr told lawmakers in an Aug. 28, 2018 hearing that he met Simpson prior to the 2016 election to discuss information gathered in the infamous Steele dossier. That conflicts with Simpson’s testimony to the House Intelligence Committee that he met Ohr only after the election and at Ohr’s request.

Ohr also revealed Simpson provided him during a meeting in December 2016 with a seemingly false lead about Mitchell that ended up in a news article published in 2018.

Both of Simpson’s inaccurate claims have been reported in the past, but they were not officially confirmed until Friday, when Georgia GOP Rep. Doug Collins released a transcript of Ohr’s testimony before the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees.

In his interview, Ohr discussed his interactions with Simpson and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the dossier. Ohr served as a back channel between Steele and the FBI after the 2016 election. He met twice with both Simpson and Steele to exchange information that Steele gathered as part of the dossier project.

Some Republican lawmakers have suggested that Simpson lied about the timeline of his interactions with Ohr, whose wife worked as a contractor for Fusion GPS. Texas GOP Rep. John Ratcliffe said on Oct. 14, 2018 that Simpson faced “real legal jeopardy” over his testimony. Simpson pleaded the Fifth two days later to avoid testifying to the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees.

The testimony that could land Simpson in hot water took place before the House Intelligence Committee on Nov. 14, 2017. In the closed-door hearing, Simpson acknowledged that he met with Ohr, but he claimed that the meeting occurred after the 2016 election. He also suggested that Ohr sought the meeting.

Ohr’s testimony conflicts directly with both claims.

Ohr said that he met twice with Simpson, on Aug. 22, 2016 and again on Dec. 10, 2016. He also testified that it was Simpson who reached out to him, and not the other way around.

Simpson revealed his contacts with Ohr after being asked in the November 2017 hearing whether he had heard from anyone at the FBI or Justice Department about his and Steele’s investigation of President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.

“After the election. I mean, during the election, no,” Simpson said.

“What did you hear after and from whom and when?” a House staffer asked.

“I was asked to provide some information to the Justice Department,” Simpson replied.

When asked who contacted him and when, Simpson said: “It was by a prosecutor named Bruce Ohr, who was following up. You know, I can’t remember when. It was sometime after Thanksgiving, I think.”

“Did Mr. Ohr reach out to you, or how did that shake out?” he was asked.

Simpson did not acknowledge that he reached out to Ohr. Instead, he said that Steele had been in touch with Ohr “and that Bruce wanted more information.” Steele and Ohr had met on July 30, 2016.

Simpson claimed again that his interaction with Ohr occurred only after the election.

“The context of this is that it was after the election,” said Simpson. “A very surprising thing had happened, which is that Donald Trump had won. There was — we were — by that time, we were enormously concerned about rapidly accumulating indications that the Russian Government had mounted a massive attack on the American election system and that, you know, Donald Trump or his associates might have been involved.”

Ohr suggested in his testimony that Simpson initiated the December 2016 meeting. He also said that Simpson provided him with a memory stick that he wanted given to the FBI. That would seem to conflict with Simpson’s testimony that he was asked to provide information to the Justice Department and that Ohr requested the information.

“So, as I think I may have mentioned earlier, Glenn Simpson wanted to meet in early December, whatever date that was in December. At that meeting, he provided me with a memory stick and provided some additional details on information about possible connections between the Russian Government and the Trump campaign,” Ohr testified.

Simpson has not commented on his testimony. It is unclear why Simpson would have lied about his contacts with Ohr, but some Republicans have theorized the opposition researcher did not want to acknowledge the breadth of his efforts to disseminate information from the dossier.

Ohr also confirmed in his testimony that Simpson provided him with information on Mitchell during their meeting on Dec. 10, 2016.

“I think it was Glenn Simpson mentioned to me was that Cleta Mitchell became aware of money moving through the NRA or something like that from Russia,” Ohr testified. “And I don’t remember the exact circumstances. And that she was upset about it, but the election was over. I seem to remember that from my notes.”

Mitchell would later pop up on the radar of California Rep. Adam Schiff. The top House Intelligence Democrat released a memo on March 13, 2018 that included Mitchell on a list of potential witnesses in the committee’s Russia investigation. Two days later, McClatchy published a story revealing why Mitchell was of interest to Schiff.

The McClatchy story matched closely with what Simpson told Ohr, suggesting that the Fusion GPS founder was somehow the initial source of information on Mitchell. Mitchell had privately expressed concerns that Russian money flowed into the National Rifle Association,  according to the article.

There was one major flaw in the story.

The report initially claimed that Mitchell was a member of NRA’s board of directors. But in response to the report, Mitchell said that she left the board in 2012 and had no contact with the gun rights group during the campaign.

“I’ve never ever expressed any concerns because I’ve never had such concerns,” Mitchell told Talking Points Memo. “Never crossed my mind. Ever.”

Mitchell told The Daily Caller News Foundation that reporters from ABC News and CNN approached her weeks before Schiff’s letter inquiring about the information that ended up in the McClatchy piece.

Notably, the two reporters who wrote the Mitchell story are also behind two controversial reports alleging that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen visited Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin officials. That claim is one of the main allegations of collusion in Steele’s dossier. Cohen denied the claim in sworn congressional testimony on Feb. 27.

McClatchy says it stands behind all of its reporting on Mitchell and Cohen.

The leftist Hill magazine has recently published yet another ridiculous op-ed by an anti-defense hack, this time, Rebecca Griffin, the “political director” of “Peace Action West”, a pacifist group. The op-ed is an entire litany of blatant lies. This article will refute them.

 

Titled “Congress has a blind spot for Pentagon spending”, it begins by falsely claiming that defense spending is “out of control” and that even despite sequestration, the Congress has failed to rein it in.

 

This is such a blatant lie, it’s hard to believe such a lie has even been attempted. Congress has passed FIVE rounds of defense cuts in the last 4 years. First were the massive weapon program killings ordered by Secretary Gates in 2009 and 2010. Next was the New START unilateral arms cuts treaty. Third was the Gates Efficiencies Initiative ($178 bn), ratified by Congress in 2011. Next was the first (pre-sequestration) round of Budget Control Act-mandated defense cuts ($487 bn over a decade). Sequestration is the fifth, and it will cut another $550 bn from the defense budget over a decade.

 

To date, the DOD has contributed $900 bn (pre-sequestration) to deficit reduction, while no other federal agency or program has contributed anything meaningful.

 

The author falsely claims “smart, strategic cuts” in defense spending (she doesn’t even use the term – she calls it “Pentagon spending”, which is intended as a pejorative term) on the scale of sequestration (which is $550 bn per decade, $55 bn per year) can be made without harming national security and will actually make the nation stronger by supposedly improving its economic health.

 

That is a blatant lie, just like the rest of that screed. Cutting defense – no matter how deeply – would do little to reduce the budget deficit and thus improve America’s economic health. Even eliminating America’s military budget entirely would fail to even halve the annual budget deficit, which is over $1 trillion, as the below graph by the Heritage Foundation shows.

The author touts the various studies and reports written by “think-tanks across the political spectrum” as well as proposals by politicians ranging from Congressman Mike Coffman (R-CO) to the Congressional Progressive Caucus as supposedly proposing “smart, strategic cuts” that would allegedly not weaken the military or hurt national security. But that’s  an utterly false claims.

 

The majority of the cuts proposed by them, including the vast majority of the cuts proposed by POGO, “Taxpayers for Common Sense”, the pro-Russian Center for Defense Misinformation, the Cato Institute, the National Taxpayers Union, PIRG, Sen. Tom Coburn (RINO-OK), the Center for American Progress, and the Congressional Progressive (read: Communist) caucus would target the muscle and bone of the US military: nuclear deterrence, missile defense, air and naval superiority, power projection, and so forth.

 

(Most of these organizations are funded or co-funded by George Soros, by the way.)

 

They would target such vital weapon systems and assets as aircraft carriers, surface combatants, submarines, missile interceptors, bombers, ICBMs, nuclear warheads, V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, air superiority fighters, and so on. They would also deeply cut the force structure (i.e. the size) of all military services, which are already (excepting the Army) too small and too overstretched. (The Navy, for example, can supply only 59% of combatant commanders’ requests for ships.)

 

In other words, they could cut deeply into the muscle, not the fat: the essentials, not the waste.

 

I have personally reviewed all of these proposals, studies, and reports. The vast majority of them target the muscle, not the fat, of the military.

 

Rebecca Griffin demands that spending on “outmoded” weapon systems be cut and that somehow, cutting it deeply can avert sequestration and provide the necessary savings. That is balderdash. Not only does she not specify what she means by that, other than the F-35, that claim is in any case false. Firstly, Secretaries Gates and Panetta have already killed over 50 weapon programs since 2009, and Secretary Hagel has proposed to cancel two others (PTSS and the SM-3 Block 2B).

 

Secondly, acquisition is a small (and increasingly smaller) item in the defense budget. Operations &maintenance (financing current equipment and bases, as well as healthcare programs, training, and daily operations) is the largest, followed by personnel spending. Together, these two categories will consume 100% of the entire defense budget by FY2024 if allowed to grow on autopilot, thus automatically crowding out weapons spending.

 

This means that even if no more weapon programs are killed, personnel, operations, and maintenance costs will consume the ENTIRE defense budget by FY2024 on autopilot. No, weapons programs cannot yield any big savings. That’s not where the money is.

 

And while the F-35 is a badly flawed airplane, the air superiority mission is hugely important. Air superiority is the sine qua non of any successful military operation. And it is and will be contested by America’s adversaries. They (Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria) have advanced air defense systems (e.g. the S-300, S-400, S-500, HQ-9, and SA-11/17) as well as advanced, high quality fighters (e.g. the Flanker family, the J-10, JF-17, PAKFA, J-20, J-31, MiG-35) that outmatch every US aircraft except the F-15 and F-22.

 

Indeed, while Griffin falsely claims that there will never again be a war with another conventional adversary, and only small terrorist groups threaten the US, the US actually has two peer competitors (Russia and China) who are very close to matching the US in military strength, having closed most of the gaps that previously separated them from the US military and now working hard on closing the remaining gaps.

 

But it isn’t just Russia and China. Rogue states like Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela are also growing their military power while America is cutting its own, and it’s emboldening them. North Korea now has ICBMs capable of reaching the CONUS – and can miniaturize nuclear warheads to mate them with missiles.

 

The “we have no conventional adversaries, so we can afford to cut defense spending deeply” claim is a blatant lie.

 

But while she makes light of sequestration and denies that leftist think-tanks defense cuts proposals would weaken the military, she makes apocalyptic claims about the sequester’s cut to civilian discretionary programs. She claims that poisoned food will land on your table and children will be starving if sequestration is not resolved. She furthermore claims that this is weaponmaking companies’ and their CEOs’ fault, and claims that under sequestration, American children will be starving while defense companies’ CEOs’ salaries will be protected.

 

This is a blatant lie. In fact, under sequestration, defense companies’ CEOs’ salaries will be cut significantly. Why? Because 100% of the sequester’s cuts will fall on weapon programs as well as operations &maintenance. Personnel spending and base infrastructure in the US are completely exempt from sequestration. So weapons spending will be cut deeply under this mechanism – and with it, the CEOs’ salaries.

 

And it is utterly dishonest and shameful for Rebecca Griffin to claim that the defense companies, their CEOs, or DOD weapon programs are to blame for sequestration or will cause children to starve, when these very companies and programs will actually get hardest hit by sequestration. Demonizing them is utterly dishonest and shameful. (Disclaimer: I do not, and have never worked, for any defense company.)

 

Griffin also falsely claims:

“As the Center for Strategic and International Studies points out, cuts on the level of sequestration would amount to the smallest post-war reduction in defense spending since before the Korean War. We can make smart, strategic reductions on the level of sequestration and still be spending more than the yearly Cold War average.”

This is also utterly false. Sequestration will be the biggest cut in defense spending since the 1950s (the post-Korean-War drawdown) and also the fastest, as it is required to be implemented quickly, starting THIS fiscal year, not in a gradual manner like previous drawdowns. Furthermore, it will cut defense spending this FY to $469 bn, BELOW the annual Cold War average.

“But apparently some people still think we’re locked in a global standoff with the Soviet Union. Remembering what century we’re in provides opportunities for major reductions, such as looking at our outmoded weapons systems.”

This is also a blatant lie. I’ve already addressed the issue of supposedly “outmoded” weapons systems and of weapons spending in general, but I shall also say that the world is now more dangerous than ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said this is the most dangerous world he has seen throughout his 38 years of service. While the Afghan war is slowly ending, the world is not getting any safer – it’s getting more dangerous by the day. Therefore, America cannot afford to cut its defense budget.

Griffin’s screed is a litany of blatant lies. Not one claim made therein is true. Shame on the Hill magazine for publishing it, and shame on Congressman Coffman for republishing it on his website solely because it mentions him.

Special counsel Robert Mueller will not be delivered to the Justice Department next week, as CNN reported on Wednesday.

“Any reporting that Special Counsel Mueller’s report will be delivered to the Department of Justice next week are incorrect,” a senior Justice Department official told Fox News on Friday.

CNN reported Wednesday that Attorney General William Barr was preparing to receive the report next week.

The new statement does not indicate when the report will be released, but most observers believe the probe is near its end. CNN reported that prosecutors with the special counsel’s office have been spotted removing boxes of documents from their offices. The grand jury being used in the Mueller probe has also not met since Jan. 24, the same day that Trump confidant Roger Stone was indicted.

NBC News reported back in December that Mueller’s team was in the process of writing a report of the investigation, and could deliver it to the Justice Department by mid-February.

Mueller has been investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government, as well as possible obstruction of justice on the part of President Donald Trump.

Once Mueller does submit a report to the Justice Department, Barr will have the option of providing some or all of it to Congress and to the public. Democratic lawmakers have already started pressing Barr to publicize as much of the report as he can.

Last night, in his response to President Obama’s SOTU speech, Rand Paul, as usual, directed most of his arrows not at Obama and the Democrats, but at his own party and its conservative supporters, and while so doing, he recited his standard litany of blatant lies about defense issues.

He falsely claimed that defense spending is/has been a “sacred cow” that Republicans have protected for long; that it’s time for Republicans to “realize that military spending is not immune to waste and fraud”; he furthermore claimed that “Not only should the sequester stand”, but it should even be increased to 4 trillion dollars.

All of his claims are blatant lies or, in the case of waste and fraud, a straw man argument.

Firstly, defense is not, and has NEVER been, a sacred cow. Here, I will not even delve into the deep defense cuts that Republicans agreed to during the 1950s, 1970s, late 1980s, and 1990s; I’ll assume that Rand Paul meant only the time since 2001. Even then, he’s still dead wrong.

Since 2009 alone, Republicans have agreed to the following defense cuts:

• The massive defense cuts of 2009, which took the form of killing over 30 crucial weapon programs, including the F-22 (the ONLY Western fighter capable of defeating the newest Russian and Chinese aircraft), the Multiple Kill Vehicle for missile defense interceptors, the Kinetic Energy Interceptor for boost phase defense, the AC-X gunship, the CSARX rescue helo, etc. This was followed up in 2010 by further killings of crucial programs, such as the C-17 airlifter and the alternative engine for the F-35 (thus giving Pratt and Whitney an engine monopoly).
• The New START treaty, ratified in 2010, obligating only the US (not Russia) to cut its deployed nuclear arsenal by 1/3;
• The 178 bn Gates Efficiencies of 2011; and
• The 487 bn in further defense cuts mandated by the First Tier of the Budget Control Act, accepted by most Republicans in 2011.

All of this BEFORE sequestration.

To date, the DOD has already contributed 900 bn in deficit reduction since 2009. Any claim that the DOD has been a “sacred cow” are blatant lies.

Moreover, defense is not anyone’s “sacred cow”; it is the highest Constitutional DUTY of the federal government – indeed, the most important one according to George Washington. The majority of Congress’ enumerated powers are related to military matters, and the reason why the federal government was created in the first place was to provide for the common defense, as the preamble to the Constitution explains. It was created because the weak Congress of the Confederacy had no means to provide for the Union’s defense.

Rand Paul chastises his fellow Republicans for wanting to spare defense from sequestration, claiming that “it’s time for Republicans to realize that military spending is not immune to waste and fraud”. But no one in any party and no one in the United States is claiming that it is immune from waste and fraud. (Personally, I’m the author of the largest DOD reform proposals package ever compiled by anyone.)

But there isn’t enough waste and fraud in the defense budget to pay for a 550 bn per decade sequester. Not even close to enough. Thus, sequestration – or any cuts on a similar scale – would have to cut a lot of money out of genuine military capabilities – the meat and bone of the US military. In other words, gut the military.

All members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all other military leaders, all civilian leaders of the Defense Department, all non-leftist think tanks (Heritage, AEI, Center for a New American Security, Center for Security Policy, Bipartisan Policy Center) – basically everyone except the Left – have confirmed that sequestration will severely weaken the US military. The military services have already explained in detail how this would happen:

• The Navy would have to cancel the deployment of one aircraft carrier to the Gulf, cancel maintenance on at least 23 ships (including two aircraft carriers) and 250 aircraft this year alone, and cut the ship fleet by 50 vessels, including at least two carriers, down to no more than 8 (and probably fewer) flattops.
• The Air Force would have to delay all of its acquisition and development programs, stop demolishing unneeded buildings, cut flight training by 18%, cut the budget of its Global Strike command (responsible for ICBMs and bombers) by 20%and more broadly will have to curtail the service’s ability to conduct air-to-air refueling, support Army logistical requirements and, by September of this year, train new pilots—reductions that cumulatively will erode America’s vitally important airpower capabilities.
• The Army would have to stop training 78% of its brigades, cancel critical maintenance, and stop training new aviators and military intelligence specialists—delays that, according to the service’s leaders, will result in the “rapid atrophy of unit combat skills with a failure to meet demands of the National Military strategy by the end of the year.”

Recently, 46 former national security officials and defense experts spanning the partisan spectrum, from former Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) to former SECDEF Robert Gates (who presided over the first three rounds of defense cuts mentioned above) to Reagan nat-sec advisor Bud McFarlane have signed a letter underlining sequestration’s grave impact on the military and chastising the President and the Congress for not stopping it. Their letter concludes thus:

“Sequestration will result in unacceptable risk for U.S. national security. It will degrade our ability to defend our allies, deter aggression, and promote and protect American economic interests. It will erode the credibility of our treaty commitments abroad. It will be a self-inflicted wound to American strength and leadership in the world.

History will not look kindly on this abdication of responsibility, but will hold accountable the President and the Congress who together chose such a dangerous course.”

Even if you think there is still enough waste in defense to pay for sequestration (and if you think that, you’re wrong), that still doesn’t help Rand Paul: sequestration will actually AGGRAVATE the problem of waste in the defense budget by forcing the DOD into inefficiencies, such as:

• Cutting weapon purchase rates, thus preventing the realization of economies of scale and leading to cost overruns (because weapons are much cheaper when you buy more of them and faster);
• Delaying and underfunding the research, development, and testing phases of weapon programs, thus delaying their development and the moment that bugs are discovered and fixed in weapons;
• Delaying much-needed maintenance on ships, aircraft, and ground vehicles of all sorts, thus significantly increasing the bill for maintaining and repairing them when such maintenance and refurbishment can no longer be delayed and has to be done;
• Furloughing all DOD civilian employees whose job is to manage the DOD’s programs on a daily basis; and
• Underfunding training, meaning that you’ll have to train people later at a higher cost to regain lost skills.
• Moreover, sequestration will cut everything in the defense budget (except personnel costs) by a uniform percentage – the waste by the same percentage as the essentials. Thus, beef jerky studies will be cut by the same percentage as the Next Generation Bomber.

Also, sequestration does NOT authorize crucial, money-saving reforms for which the DOD has repatedly requested authorization: healthcare and retirement program reforms and base closure. Indeed, the Budget Control Act explicitly prohibits using the sequester to close unneeded bases. So the DOD will be gutted doubly: forced to cut its budget deeply and uniformly while not being allowed to carry out the reforms it does need and has requested authorization for.

In short, sequestration will only make the problem of waste in the defense budget WORSE, not better.

If Sen. Paul were TRULY concerned about waste and fraud in the defense budget, he would be doing everything he can to CANCEL sequestration and, at minimum, give the DOD full flexibility to administer these cuts. But he’s not doing that – because he’s a total fraud and doesn’t give a damn about “waste and fraud” in the defense budget. All he cares about is gutting the US military – a goal he shares with his loathsome, stridently liberal, and stridently anti-American father Ron Paul, who, like his son, is a total fraud (he recently sued his former supporters… at the United Nations).

And if Sen. Paul were a real defender of the Constitution and limited government, he would not have been introducing unconstitutional bills to mandate federal policies on employment and abortion – issues reserved to the states and the people.

But he doesn’t really care about limited government or waste and fraud in the defense budget – all he cares about is gutting America’s defense. That is probably why he has suggested that the sequester should not only be allowed to stand, but even increased to 4 trillion dollars, as if the current sequester of America’s defense was not bad enough.

There isn’t even nearly that much waste in the defense budget. Not even close. Any cuts on the scale of the current sequester – let alone the one that Paul proposes – would have to cut deeply into America’s defense capabilities – and that would only invite aggression that would have to be repelled at a much greater cost.

Shame on Rand Paul for stating such blatant lies, and shame on the Tea Party Express for giving him the platform to do so. No one should ever take them seriously again.

Rand Paul has proven once again that he’s the same anti-American, anti-defense, anti-conservative, pro-weak-defense, isolationist pseudoconservative fraud as his father. He must be denied the Republican presidential nomination – in 2016 and all successive presidential election cycles.