Trump world running like a well-oiled machine

 

Yeah, soldiers don't need training.  Especially pilots.

More money for the military!

So says the "peace president".

Wars on Venezuela, Mexico, Iran, and Greenland don't just pay for themselves, you know.

Wait a minute, they're telling us that indeed war on Venezuela will indeed pay for itself with the oil we take.  

Support our troops

 Remember when the right used to scream at us that we didn't "support our troops"?  Where are those screamers now?

Clown show extraordinaire

On a key vote, five Republicans voted with Democrats against their own party’s policy preferences, leading to a high-profile, embarrassing defeat. The failure of the vote makes it even more likely that the GOP will stumble into a government shutdown at the end of the month because it can’t figure out how to make a deal with itself.

[...]

Republican House members have lost touch with mechanisms of democratic accountability.

  Public Notice

They didn't lose touch, they took a hatchet to it.

The fact is that many GOP House members, and especially the far-right Freedom Caucus, have for some years taken any and every opportunity to buck leadership simply for the sake of bucking leadership. Conservatives forced their speaker, John Boehner, to resign prematurely in 2015. His successor, Paul Ryan, left Congress in 2018 after elaborately failing to unite his caucus. Kevin McCarthy then limped in as minority leader. When the GOP won a narrow majority in 2022, he was forced to endure 15 votes before his caucus reluctantly seated him as speaker.

The far-right representatives are fractious not because they have a consistent, principled agenda, but because they don’t.

[...]

It’s notable that even the mainstream Republicans are grandstanding to pass a bill that tries to use military appropriations to push anti-abortion messaging — this despite the fact that abortion bans are extremely unpopular and get more unpopular when they are actually passed into law. The backlash to the Dobbs anti-abortion Supreme Court decision is widely credited with winning Democrats the 2022 midterms. McCarthy’s GOP is pushing a ruinous messaging bill, and then, even more ruinously, torpedoing that bill for unrelated and unclear reasons while the entire conference runs about like decapitated farm fowl.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Don't look for Dems to change the pattern

The difference, however, is that Republicans would like to put it ALL in military and law enforcement.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

House GOP and Nazis

All 208 House Republicans thumbed their noses at an amendment to a bill that would order the government to investigate white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity in the military and federal law enforcement.

But due to the current Democratic majority in the House, the amendment—which was wrapped into the annual defense spending bill—still passed strictly along party lines.

[...]

[I]t would mandate the chiefs of the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Defense to produce a report assessing the extent of white supremacist or neo-Nazi activity in their ranks and how they plan to address it. They’d have 180 days from the enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act to compile that report.

[...]

There’s no question that white supremacists have infiltrated the ranks of the armed forces. In recent years, violent neo-Nazis and preppy white supremacists alike have been exposed as active-duty members of the military. A Pentagon report last year, obtained by Roll Call, described the inroads that white supremacists were building into the military in an effort to recruit “highly prized” active-duty personnel.

[...]

Once the House passes the full spending bill, titled the National Defense Authorization Act, it will head to the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.

  Vice

Not really. It has to get past president Manchin.

Last month, the House also passed the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, which, if it clears the Senate, would establish dedicated domestic terrorism departments in the FBI, DOJ, and Homeland Security to monitor, analyze, investigate and prosecute those crimes.

That bill garnered just one Republican vote, from Rep. Adam Kinzinger. Four other Republicans did not vote at all.

Yes, Liz Cheney voted against it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

War profiteering

While Biden blamed the Afghans for the US failure in their country...

Up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the United States Department of Defense since the September 11, 2001 attacks went to for-profit defence contractors, a new report by Brown University’s Costs of War project and the Center for International Policy found.

And while much of that money went to weapons suppliers, Monday’s report is the latest to point to the US’s dependence on contractors for warzone duties as contributing to mission failures in Afghanistan, in particular. The paper is entitled, Profits of War: Corporate Beneficiaries of the Post-9/11 Pentagon Spending Surge.

[...]

William Hartung, the paper’s author, and others said it is essential that Americans examine what role the reliance on private contractors played in the post-9/11 wars.

[...]

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, American officials embraced private contractors as an essential part of the US’s military response.

It started with then-Vice President Dick Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton. Halliburton received more than $30bn to help set up and run bases, feed troops and carry out other work in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2008, the study says.

Cheney and defence contractors argued that relying on private contractors for work that service members did in previous wars would allow for a trimmer US military, and be more efficient and cost-effective.

[...]

US corporations contracted by the Defense Department not only handled warzone logistics like running fuel convoys and staffing chow lines but performed mission-crucial work like training and equipping Afghan security forces — security forces that collapsed last month as the Taliban swept through the country.

[...]

In Afghanistan, that included contractors allegedly paying protection money to warlords and the Taliban themselves, and the Defense Department insisting on equipping the Afghan air force with complex Blackhawk helicopters and other aircraft that few other than US contractors knew how to maintain.

[...]

Afghans preferred Russian helicopters, which were easier to fly, could be maintained by Afghans and were suited to rugged Afghanistan. So when US contractors pulled out with US troops this year, taking their knowledge of how to maintain US-provided aircraft with them, top Afghan leaders bitterly complained to the US that it had deprived them of one essential advantage over the Taliban.

[...]

The Pentagon pumped out more contracts than it could oversee, lawmakers and government special investigators said.

[...]

Relying less on private contractors, and more on the US military as in past wars, might have given the US better chances of victory in Afghanistan, [Jodi Vittori, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel and scholar of corruption and fragile states at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who was not involved in the study,] noted.

She said that would have meant US presidents accepting the political risks of sending more American troops to Afghanistan, and getting more body bags of American troops back.

“Using contractors allowed America to fight a war that a lot of Americans forgot we were fighting,” Vittori said.

  alJazeera

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

A little more oversight and some stricter laws might go a long way

Although shell companies have many legitimate uses, they’ve also become an invaluable tool allowing terrorists, money launderers, human traffickers and tax cheats to evade detection.

[...]

Some Defense Department suppliers have used such front companies to fraudulently win manufacturing bids, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office study of Defense Department contractors.

In some cases, the shell companies helped contractors obscure that they were making U.S. military equipment abroad, the GAO said, posing a risk to national security and quality control. More often, they were used to win contracts meant for companies owned by disabled veterans or minorities, it said.

[...]

One case reviewed in the GAO’s November report, involving a contractor in Paterson, New Jersey, shows how the tactic can pose a safety risk for the armed forces. That contractor, run by a businessman named Ferdi Gul, won 346 U.S. military contracts over several years to supply parts for torpedoes, bomb ejector racks and mine clearance systems. His company was registered with the Pentagon as a domestic manufacturer.

But the parts were actually made thousands of miles away in Gul’s native Turkey, U.S. authorities say. Using a front company to disguise the arrangement, Gul illegally exported military technical drawings there and defrauded the U.S. of $7 million, they said.

The Pentagon “routinely encountered significant problems with the quality of the parts,” and tests revealed “numerous design flaws” in torpedo parts provided by Gul’s company, court records show.

Two of Gul’s employees pleaded guilty to their roles in the fraud. Gul, who was first charged in 2015 and indicted in 2018, hasn’t responded to the case in federal court in New Jersey. At the time of his indictment, he was believed to be living in Turkey.

  alJazeera

Sweet. And if the parts weren't defective, perhaps he woudn't have been caught and would still be in business with the Pentagon.

In another case reviewed by the GAO, the government didn’t know the true supplier when it granted a contract to a New Jersey company to make safety gear called wing pins for F-15 fighter jets.

The winning bidder was a company called Allied Components LLC, created by a man named Robert Luba. It turned out that was a shell company. Luba and a business associate, Hannah Robert, used another company based in India to manufacture the components, while lying to the Defense Department about their supplier, prosecutors said. Working with an unidentified partner in India, Robert secretly exported technical drawings for aircraft parts, nuclear submarine torpedo systems and attack helicopters.

To avoid detection, Robert and her Indian partner posted sensitive military data on the password-protected website of a New Jersey church where Robert was a volunteer. In addition to illegally exporting the blueprints, they used them in seeking contracts in the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Indonesia, prosecutors said.

The contactors’ crimes had safety implications, too. The Defense Department discovered wing pins provided by Luba failed to meet hardness specifications. The military eventually had to replace the wing parts in 47 F-15 jets.

[...]

The government watchdog reviewed 32 cases that made their way to criminal prosecutions or lawsuits between 2012 and 2018. Taken together, they illustrate how the Pentagon’s $350 billion in annual contracting can be gamed using companies that exist largely on paper.

The problem could be far bigger, since the GAO’s study wasn’t intended to gauge its scope. The watchdog said the Pentagon had made only spotty efforts to pierce the secrecy of shell companies.

“I don’t think anybody really knows the extent of the problem,” said Robert Burton, a former top government procurement attorney now at Crowell & Moring. “I do know that some of these folks have become quite proficient at disguising ownership.”

[...]

Even as countries in Europe and elsewhere are requiring greater disclosure, the U.S. remains a tax and secrecy haven, allowing so-called beneficial owners who profit from these corporations to hide their identities by registering in states like Delaware, Nevada, Wyoming and South Dakota.

[...]

Lawmakers in Washington are trying to bring more transparency to corporate ownership. The House passed a bill in October that would force states to collect information about who’s behind shell companies of all types and share it with law enforcement.

  alJazeera

I suppose that bill is languishing on Mitch McConnell's desk along with a hundred others.

A similar bill is pending in the Senate Banking Committee.

Where it will most likely pend until at least a Democratic control of the Senate, and maybe even after.

For particularly sensitive contracts, the Pentagon has taken steps to address risks from suppliers with murky ownership. In those cases, it has increased collection of ownership data prior to awarding contracts and excluded suppliers who pose significant risks of infiltration by adversaries. It’s also sought to identify officers, directors and owners of suppliers deemed to pose a supply-chain threat.

While the GAO praised some Pentagon efforts to monitor contractor ownership, it said they’ve been piecemeal. It recommends that the Pentagon emulate the private sector by using commercially available data mining and analysis tools to uncover identifying information from a range of databases.

[...]

“There’s a rule in banking called ‘Know Your Customer,”’ said Jeffrey Lovitky, a Washington lawyer and expert in government procurement law. “In military procurement, there really should be a rule, ‘Know Your Contractor.’”

Jesus, that's the least we could ask.

Defense Department contracting officers lack the “time, resources or training they need to conduct in-depth reviews or analysis of the ownership aspects of a particular company,” the GAO said. The ownership data in the federal database used by the Pentagon to assess vendors lists only “prime contractors,” not subcontractors in the supply chain.

[...]

For foreign adversaries like China, Russia or Iran, shell companies could be a point of entry into the Pentagon’s procurement system. Last year, the Air Force scrapped a $420 million contract to make bunker-busting bombs after a competitor complained that it had been given to a foreign-owned company with ties to a U.S-sanctioned Russian oligarch.

[...]

The Defense Department faces “several types of financial and nonfinancial fraud and national security risks posed by contractors with opaque ownership,” according to the GAO. Such opaque companies owned by adversary states could pose intelligence threats, if they steal intellectual property or insert malware into critical systems, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a 2017 report.

“Not only might you have sanctioned parties doing contracting work, but enemies of the U.S. getting access to our funds, our equipment, our sites and our personnel,” says Greg Lisa, a Hogan Lovells lawyer who worked at the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. “That’s frightening.”

And, apparently, happening even as we speak.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Any bets?

The Trump administration is withholding more than $100 million in U.S. military assistance to Lebanon that has been approved by Congress and is favored by his national security team, an assertion of executive control of foreign aid that is similar to the delay in support for Ukraine at the center of the impeachment inquiry.

The hold came up in impeachment testimony by David Hale, the No. 3 official in the State Department, according to the transcript of the closed-door hearing released this week. He described growing consternation among diplomats as the administration would neither release the aid nor provide an explanation for the hold.

“People started asking: What's the problem?” Hale told the impeachment investigators.

As with the Ukraine assistance, the Office of Management and Budget has not explained the reason for the delay. However, unlike Ukraine, there is no suggestion that President Donald Trump is seeking “a favor” from Lebanon to release it, according to five officials familiar with the matter. The White House and OMB have declined to comment on the matter.

  NBC

OK, I'll suggest it: he's seeking "a favor."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The F-35 is STILL a boondoggle

More often than planned?!

[A]ll three versions of the fighter are breaking down “more often than planned.”

  Bloomberg

Three versions - all crap!

“In short, for all variants, aircraft are breaking down more often than planned and taking longer to fix.”

And taking longer to fix.

None of the Air Force, Marines and Navy variants of the Lockheed Martin Corp. fighter are meeting their five key “reliability or maintainability metrics,” Robert Behler, the Pentagon’s director of operational testing, said in prepared remarks Wednesday before two House Armed Services Committee panels.

The House subcommittees are reviewing the $428 billion program’s status and progress recovering from years of cost overruns and production delays.

[...]

His statement is a reality check just weeks after the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin announced that they finalized the largest contract in the program’s history, a deal valued at $34 billion for 478 additional aircraft. About $27 billion of F-35s have already been placed on contract even though the program hasn’t completed all its combat testing and struggles with reliability.

The very definition of insanity.

So far, 458 jets have been fielded out of about 3,500 planned purchases by U.S. and allies from Australia to Poland.

Well at least other countries are getting stiffed, too. How many years have we been flogging this dead horse? Are we counting the time by decades yet?

Too much money in it to scrap it now, I guess.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What we weren't told about the withheld Ukraine money is coming out

In late July, as panic spread within the administration over the president’s worrisome decision, the National Security Council led a series of interagency meetings to discuss what to do about the military assistance to Ukraine. At one of these meetings, Defense Department officials told the White House that if the $250 million [the Pentagon's portion of the money] in security assistance was not released by August 6, it would not be able to spend it all by the end of the fiscal year, according to two sources familiar with the deliberations.

The Defense Department’s message was clear: If the White House didn’t act, the Pentagon would be left with unobligated funds — money that would return to the U.S. Treasury and never make its way to Ukraine. And the Pentagon was also clear that providing Ukraine the security assistance was in the national security interests of the United States, on that point Trump’s Cabinet agreed.

“At every meeting, the unanimous conclusion was that the security assistance should be resumed, the hold lifted,” Bill Taylor, the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, said in his opening statement to House investigators last week.

As for corruption, the pretext being given for why the funding was being withheld, the Pentagon had certified in May that the “Government of Ukraine has taken substantial actions to make defense institutional reforms for the purposes of decreasing corruption [and] increasing accountability.”

[...]

But, the White House did not heed the Pentagon’s warnings. It continued to withhold the money through August and into September.

[...]

On August 12, a whistleblower inside the Intelligence Community filed a complaint, flagging Trump’s disturbing phone call with Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelenskyy and raising questions about why the security assistance was being delayed. On August 26, the Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, having determined that the complaint was credible and met the legal definition of an “urgent concern,” forwarded it to acting Director Of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, expecting him to transmit it to Congress. Instead, Maguire consulted with the Justice Department and the White House, which, at some point before September 9, directed Maguire not to share the complaint with the congressional intelligence committees.

In the meantime, POLITICO broke the news on August 28 that Trump was withholding the Ukraine money, immediately prompting outcry on Capitol Hill.

[...]

On September 9, the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight and Reform committees announced they were investigating the “Trump-Giuliani Ukraine Scheme,” including Trump’s decision to “withhold security assistance to Ukraine in defiance of explicit congressional direction.” And, in the Senate, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was reportedly threatening to withhold $5 billion in Pentagon funding for next year unless the Ukraine money was released.

  Just Security

Now that's something we haven't heard. What we've heard is Republicans claiming that there couldn't have been any quid pro quo because the money was released.  I hope all this shit is going to be covered in the public hearings.

With Congress growing irate and the fight over the whistleblower complaint about to break into the open, Trump finally gave permission to release the Ukraine funding. On September 11, the State Department notified Congress that $141 million worth of military equipment for Ukraine would resume, and the next day, it was reported that the hold on the $250 million of military assistance from the Defense Department had also been lifted.

[...]

At this point, it was widely assumed that with Trump’s granting of permission, the funding had been fully restored. But, the Pentagon knew the White House had waited too long, ignoring its August 6 deadline. Halfway through September, there was no way the Pentagon was going to be able to get all of the funding out the door before the fiscal year ended.

“The White House had time to resolve any issues, but apparently ignored the deadline, putting the funding at risk,” said Sam Berger, who served at the Office of Management and Budget during the Obama administration and is now vice president for democracy and government reform at the Center for American Progress. “This is further evidence that the aid was withheld for political reasons, not policy concerns.”

With time running out, the Defense Department had to rely on Congress for help. The best opportunity to address the problem was with the seven-week Continuing Resolution (CR) spending bill, which was being drafted on Capitol Hill to avert a government shutdown.

[...]

Appropriators worked with the Defense Department on crafting last-minute legislation that could be added to the CR that would extend the deadline the Pentagon would have to spend the Ukraine money and prevent it from running afoul of the law.

The final CR included language that essentially rescinded the money the Pentagon was unable to spend and then re-appropriated it, putting time back on the clock for the Pentagon to supply Ukraine with what it needed.

[...]

However, the release of the funding in September did not address all of the potential legal violations at play. The very act of holding the money in the first place could have also violated the Impoundment Control Act, because the White House did so without congressional approval or notification.

"Could" have?

“The Trump administration did not follow the Impoundment Control Act’s notification requirements when they held up Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding, and actions to delay this and other international assistance funding appear to be clear violations of the law,” Hollander said.

In the end, it’s clear that the Pentagon’s warning to the White House over the summer went ignored, revealing just how much the White House was willing to risk with its Ukraine pressure campaign.

Impeach the motherfucker.

And all those motherfuckers who have been enabling and defending him.

Early warning signs

From HOLDING THE LINE: Inside Trump’s Pentagon With Secretary Mattis by Guy M. Snodgrass, Commander, US Navy (Ret.), to be published on October 29th by Sentinel, an imprint of The Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2019 by Guy M. Snodgrass

Trump had declared America’s unilateral withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. He was also threatening to dismantle the nuclear deal with Iran, withdraw from NATO, pull U.S. forces back from South Korea, Germany and Japan, give Russia a pass on its electoral interference in the 2016 election, and, in his spare time, start a war with North Korea.

In private, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and [Defense Secretary James] Mattis feared these actions signaled America’s diminished authority as a world leader and emboldened China, Russia and Iran to fill the vacuum.

[...]

If anyone could change the president’s mind, it was Mattis. He had maintained a close relationship with Trump since he was confirmed in early 2017, visiting the White House two or three times a week for meetings, lunch and sometimes dinner. It was obvious to us that Trump valued Mattis’ opinion and simply liked having him around to bounce ideas off.

  Politico

I suspect he just liked the idea of rubbing shoulders with generals.

The plan for [President Trump's first Pentagon] briefing was for Mattis to speak first, walking Trump through details on every U.S. military deployment abroad, demonstrating America’s return on investment. Tillerson would follow with slides on U.S. embassies and missions abroad. National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn would speak last to highlight the importance of global trade flows.

[...]

Trump took his place at the head of the table with a frown fixed on his face. Offering few greetings to anyone, he sat with his arms crossed, refusing to look at Mattis. To me it seemed that his mind was already made up. He appeared to see this entire briefing as pointless [...] .

[...]

Mattis continued with his briefing, walking through in exacting detail the force ratios in each major geographic location. He sought to convince the president that our allies and partners put forward far more troops in support of stability abroad than America does. In short, America gets a good deal from an overseas military presence.

The president frowned, fiddling with the papers in front of him while glancing around the room.

[...]

Mattis’ third slide triggered a stronger response from Trump. A visual depiction of our Pacific posture, this slide zoomed in on the U.S. forces located in Japan and South Korea—forces that had kept the peace in both countries for more than six decades.

[...]

Mattis loved this slide because it outlined the significant contributions both nations were making, with Japan footing part of the bill to shift U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam, and South Korea paying to move Army soldiers to a new base. He emphasized to the president the importance of Japan paying to offset the costs for a new base, saying it was the first time in history they’d done so.

“Who is paying the rest of the bill for the move to Guam?” the president demanded. He was upset that Japan was only covering a part of the total costs required to relocate the base.

There was silence. But only briefly.

“Our trade agreements are criminal,” Trump thundered—despite the fact that Mattis was not talking about anything trade-related. “Japan and South Korea are taking advantage of the United States.” This was decidedly not the message Mattis’ slide intended to convey.

Out of nowhere, the president added, “And the USS Ford [the navy’s newest aircraft carrier] is completely out of control with cost overruns!”

[...]

Twenty-five minutes later, it was Tillerson’s turn to run the gauntlet. Tillerson was by nature a slow talker. I could tell at once that was not an endearing quality to Trump. “This is one big monster created over a number of years. Japan … Germany … South Korea … our allies are costing more than anyone else at the table!” Again, not the message any of us had intended.

Then the president paused. His eyes seemed animated by a thought.

[...]

“I just returned from France,” he said. “Did you see President Macron’s handshake?” he asked no one in particular. “He wouldn’t let go. He just kept holding on. I spent two hours at Bastille Day. Very impressive.”

A pause.

“I want a ‘Victory Day.’ Just like Veterans Day. The Fourth of July is too hot,” he said, apparently out of nowhere. “I want vehicles and tanks on Main Street. On Pennsylvania Avenue, from the Capitol to the White House. We need spirit! We should blow everybody away with this parade. The French had an amazing parade on Bastille Day with tanks and everything. Why can’t we do that?”

No doubt that was all he was thinking about the entire time he was being briefed.

Mattis and his team’s response to the president’s suggestion made clear that they were adamantly opposed to a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. Mattis and others voiced concern that a parade like what Trump wanted would harken back to Soviet Union—like displays of authoritarian power. Mattis stated that precious taxpayer dollars would be better spent elsewhere, and that the optics of such a display of power would boomerang, causing more harm to America’s international prestige than any domestic benefit could outweigh. Mattis was also concerned that a parade would risk eroding the military’s long-standing apolitical reputation.

It didn’t matter—Trump was serious. Mattis deflected and played for more time by saying, “We’ll take a look at some options and get back to you, Mr. President.”

And that's what Trump announced after the meeting. That was his important "take-away message".  The Pentagon is looking into having a military parade.  They told him it would cost too much, so he acquiesced, but only for the moment.  He eventually got his parade.

Over time Mattis began to shut down, sitting back in his chair with a distant, defeated look on his face. He had cared so much about this meeting, had poured his heart and soul into it, and had believed firmly in his ability to bring Trump around to his way of thinking. None of his attempts were working. From my vantage point, Mattis was playing a game of chess against a president fixated on “Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

Mattis did not think Trump was a raving lunatic, as some were trying to portray the president. In fact, Mattis had made a point of noting to us that America elected Trump for a reason. That the president had tremendous political skills, a sharp intuition and a formidable business career.

That kind of thinking is what kept Mattis at a disadvantage. Trump has none of those characteristics.

But still Trump could tax Mattis’ patience, and the president’s view of the world was both simplistic and troublesome.

[...]

Across the table from Mattis, Tillerson also became increasingly frustrated, jousting verbally with the president before becoming so exasperated that he stopped talking completely for the last half-hour of the meeting. Tillerson sat back in his chair with his arms crossed, an incredulous scowl on his face as he shot pointed looks over to Mattis.

[...]

For the remainder of the meeting, Trump veered from topic to topic—Syria, Mexico, a recent Washington Post story he didn’t like—like a squirrel caught in traffic, dashing one way and then another.

The issues were complicated, yet all of the president’s answers were simplistic and ad hoc. He was shooting from the hip on issues of global importance.

With that, the meeting ended.

[...]

Despite the challenging environment that existed between the Pentagon and the White House, Mattis was able to score a succession of victories over the next eight months: releasing the nation’s first national defense strategy after going more than 10 years without one; [...]

Does anyone know to this day what that is?

[...] working with coalition and Kurdish forces to bring ISIS to the edge of defeat in Syria;

How'd that work out?

[...] and working with Congress to restore funding to begin rebuilding a badly depleted military.

Yes, Trump keeps telling people that Mattis told him the military didn't have any ammunition.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE: Apparently Mattis isn't as fond of his former aide as the aide is of him.

“General Mattis hasn’t read the book and doesn’t intend to,” Mattis’ assistant wrote in an email, referring to retired Navy Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass’ forthcoming memoir, “Holding the Line: Inside Trump’s Pentagon with Secretary Mattis.”

The book, which portrays Mattis fending off capricious demands from Trump and voicing private fears that the president was weakening U.S. national security, will be released Oct. 29.

“Mr. Snodgrass was a junior staffer who took notes in some meetings but played no role in decision making. His choice to write a book reveals an absence of character,” Mattis’ assistant, Candace Currier, wrote in the statement, adding that “surreptitiously taking notes without authorization for a self-promoting personal project is a clear violation of that trust.”

Snodgrass “may receive a few brief moments of attention for this book. But those moments will be greatly outweighed by the fact that to get them, he surrendered his honor,” the statement continued.

  Politico

Innocent, I tell you! Innocent!

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  More details in this podcast interview with Natasha Bertrand, who broke this story.

UPDATE:

Another story of Trump using the presidency to enrich himself and save his failing businesses

The story...

In early Spring of this year, an Air National Guard crew made a routine trip from the U.S. to Kuwait to deliver supplies.

What wasn’t routine was where the crew stopped along the way: President Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort, about 50 miles outside Glasgow, Scotland.

Since April, the House Oversight Committee has been investigating why the crew on the C-17 military transport plane made the unusual stay — both en route to the Middle East and on the way back — at the luxury waterside resort, according to several people familiar with the incident. But they have yet to receive any answers from the Pentagon.

  Politico

What a surprise.

According to a letter the panel sent to the Pentagon in June, the military has spent $11 million on fuel at the Prestwick Airport — the closest airport to Trump Turnberry — since October 2017, fuel that would be cheaper if purchased at a U.S. military base. The letter also cites a Guardian report that the airport provided cut-rate rooms and free rounds of golf at Turnberry for U.S. military members.

Taken together, the incidents raise the possibility that the military has helped keep Trump’s Turnberry resort afloat — the property lost $4.5 million in 2017, but revenue went up $3 million in 2018.

How nice.

One crew member was so struck by the choice of hotel — markedly different than the Marriotts and Hiltons the 176th maintenance squadron is used to — that he texted someone close to him and told him about the stay, sending a photo and noting that the crew’s per diem allowance wasn’t enough to cover food and drinks at the ritzy resort.

[...]

“The Defense Department has not produced a single document in this investigation,” said a senior Democratic aide on the oversight panel. “The committee will be forced to consider alternative steps if the Pentagon does not begin complying voluntarily in the coming days.”

I'm sure they're shaking in their boots over at the Pentagon.

This needs to go straight into official impeachment hearings.  Along with so many, many other issues.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Drugged to read a speech again

Honestly, he does seem drugged when he's giving a speech that's written for him.

"Military equipment nobody would have even conceived of two years ago."

Jesus.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Wait till it goes to the Senate

Is Congress capable of rising from the dead?

What the...what??

On Tuesday, Trump and first lady Melania Trump went aboard a Japanese destroyer to visit Japanese troops and then made a visit to the USS Wasp docked at the mouth of Tokyo Bay. Aboard the USS Wasp, Trump gave a Memorial Day speech to hundreds of members of the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet.

Trump spoke while aboard the ship and offered his thoughts on aircraft carrier design. "You know, they were saying — one of the folks said, 'No, the electric works faster. But, sir, we can only get the plane there every couple of minutes,'" Trump said according to a White House transcript. "So, really, what they did was wrong."

"I think I’m going to put an order," the president continued. "When we build a new aircraft carrier, we’re going to use steam. I’m going to just put out an order: We’re going to use steam. We don’t need — we don’t need that extra speed."

“Steam’s only worked for about 65 years perfectly,” Trump continued.

“And I won’t tell you this because it’s before my time by a little bit, but they have a $900 million cost overrun on this crazy electric catapult," Trump said.

  Haaretz

Surely this is "fake news." 

President Donald Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on the Navy to return to the days of steam-powered catapults for launching jets from aircraft carriers — a multibillion-dollar shift that could take nearly two decades to achieve and would likely spur a clash with Congress.

  Politico

We hope.

Trump has spent two years criticizing the Navy's decision to switch to an electromagnetic launch system for its newest class of aircraft carriers, citing delays in rolling out the technology and complaining that “you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out.” But he kicked his old-tech obsession up a notch during his visit to Japan, telling U.S. service members he plans to order the Navy to outfit all its new carriers with steam catapults.

"So I think I’m going to put an order: When we build a new aircraft carrier, we’re going to use steam,” Trump told sailors and Marines aboard the amphibious assault shift USS Wasp at a Navy base south of Tokyo, speaking late Monday night U.S. Eastern time. He renewed his complaint that the new technology could be unreliable during battle. “We’re spending all that money on electric, and nobody knows what it’s going to be like in bad conditions.”

[...]

The Navy opted not to comment on Trump’s latest remarks, instead referring all questions to the White House.

As you would.

The White House, in turn, did not respond to questions on whether Trump will formally order the Navy to abandon its new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System.

As you wouldn't.

“No one is seriously talking about swapping EMALS with steam catapults — not even the U.S. Navy, which has studied EMALS extensively and believes EMALS has significant advantages over steam," said Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), using the Navy acronym for the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System. "Overhauling the Ford-class carriers for steam catapults would require a complete redesign of the Ford and the reconstitution of the industrial base for steam catapults, creating significant delays and cost overruns.

"This is not a feasible proposal, and I don’t anticipate Congress going along with this proposal and providing the funding to revert and refit the Ford class.”

Trump has sought sailors' views on the system before. On the Wasp, which does not use catapults of either type, Trump asked the crew which type of catapult they prefer.

Surely they're the people to ask.

He was met mostly with shouts of "steam," and joked that one crew member who shouted in favor of the electric system "works for the enemy."

And, don't forget, he knows more about everything than everybody.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

House doesn't override Trump emergency veto

The House failed Tuesday to override the first veto of President Trump's tenure, a vote led by Democrats seeking to uphold a measure unwinding the president's national emergency declaration at the southern border.

The chamber voted 248-181 to override the veto, falling short of the roughly 290 votes, or two-thirds majority, needed. Trump issued the veto earlier this month to push back on a rebuke from Congress over his bid to reallocate Pentagon funding to build a barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.

  The Hill

The Department of Defense is shifting $1 billion from a military personnel account to build a 57-mile fence at the southern U.S. border, saying the funds were freed up after some service branches fell short of their recruiting goals.

[...]

"Military construction on the border will not come at the expense of our people, our readiness, or our modernization," [Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M.] Shanahan told the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

[...]

"Given a legal order from the commander in chief, we are executing on that order," Shanahan replied. He added that the Pentagon was aware that there were "downsides, which will hamper us" — including likely losing what he called the privilege of reprogramming funds.

[...]

But in response, Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., said the move would likely compel Congress to strip the Pentagon of the authority to "reprogram" funds that have been appropriated for specific purposes and programs. That authority is currently provided only in cases where the Pentagon consults with Congress before acting. But in this case, Smith noted, the Defense Department did not ask permission.

[...]

Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, said that while the committee's members might disagree on border and immigration policies, "We have bipartisan support for the fact that our military budget should not be cannibalized for our border security needs."

  NPR

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

More wasted defense spending

The Pentagon’s decision to acquire Israel’s US-funded Iron Dome system to defend American troops is raising questions from military experts about whether the missile defense batteries can handle emerging threats from Russia and China.

Inside Defense first reported the Army’s decision to acquire Iron Dome earlier this month. The move comes after Congress, which has long praised the system’s decadelong record of fending off rockets and mortar attacks, called on the Pentagon to take steps to obtain defenses to stop increasingly capable cruise missiles from Russia and China that could threaten US forces deployed overseas.

[...]

The United States and Israel inked a fresh memorandum of understanding in 2016 that includes $500 million in US missile defense aid each year. And the Pentagon’s new Missile Defense Review calls on the Defense Department to “take advantage of Israeli research and development efforts for similar US defense missions.”

Acquiring Iron Dome may also give the United States access to its sought-after software. But when it comes to dealing with more advanced threats that could impact US troops, such as the scud missiles fired into Yemen by the Houthi rebels, it’s not clear the system will prove effective.

“Iron Dome’s interceptors do not have the reach or speed to engage successfully a scud warhead, or any other missile with a range greater than 50 kilometers [30 miles],” said Michael Elleman, a senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

  

Well, if Canada or Mexico fire missiles at us, we'll be set.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The brilliant minds in the Pentagon

Trump administration officials are removing the Pentagon’s top weapon buying negotiator

[...]

Shay Assad, a senior Defense Department bureaucrat, is being reassigned to a post in Massachusetts, one unconnected to the contract negotiating team he has led for seven years, according to current and former defense officials familiar with the decision.

[...]

Assad has been the Pentagon’s top contract negotiator for much of this decade. His office was created in 2011 under the Better Buying Power reforms created by Carter, the Pentagon acquisition chief who went on to become defense secretary. Assad became known as a hard-nosed negotiator; within five years, Politico dubbed him him “the most hated man in the Pentagon.”

[...]

The move comes after Assad championed a plan to change how the Pentagon pays defense firms, by tying contractor payments to their performance instead of to production milestones.

  Defense One

Gasp!

Assad had a special arrangement that allowed him to live in the Boston area and commute regularly to Washington, current and former defense officials said. Neither Ash Carter, then the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, nor his successor Frank Kendall objected to this arrangement, because they viewed Assad as unusually good at saving taxpayers’ money.

But the Defense Department spent $502,758 between 2012 and 2019 on Assad’s “transportation costs,” Lt. Col. Mike Andrews, a Pentagon spokesman, said in an email.

I hope during his tenure that he saved the DoD at least that much in contracts.

Current and former Pentagon officials describe Assad as a shrewd negotiator who has saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars by getting better deals with major defense contractors. He is credited with getting the Pentagon lower prices on F-35 fighter jets and with allowing SpaceX to compete for government rocket launches, lowering the cost of putting satellites in space.

[...]

In 2016, the Pentagon credited Assad with saving taxpayers $500 million in his negotiating deals for C-17 transport planes, Apache attack helicopters and F/A-18 fighter jets.

About that F-35 contract...the manufacturer should have been required to pay the government to take them.

Much of the defense industry loathes negotiating with Assad, thanks in part to his demands for detailed documentation of the costs incurred while building weapons, several sources said. In March, Lockheed Martin’s CFO Bruce Tanner said that in recent years that negotiating with the Pentagon had become increasingly unpredictable — though he did not specifically mention Assad in his comments.

Then came the proposed rule that would have slowed payments to contractors, which sent defense firms into a frenzy. The three trade associations that represent aerospace and defense companies openly voiced their opposition — as shown by presentations at a September public meeting about the rule changes.

“The proposed rule will limit investment in more lethal and technologically superior capabilities,” the Aerospace Industries Association’s Steve Trautwein wrote in a PowerPoint brief. “The proposed rule undermines Secretary Mattis’s vision of ‘performance’ and will make defense products more expensive.”

[...]

When Wall Street caught wind of the rule change, shares of defense firms slid, including those of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics.

[...]

Then Congress got involved. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services committees, wrote to Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan saying they had “significant reservations” about the proposed change in payments to contractors, calling the rule “fundamentally flawed.”

I bet they did.

It's looking pretty obvious that Assad is being removed from his position due to complaints from the "defense" industry. They liked being able to charge whatever the fuck they wanted to charge.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.