Tag Archives: Pentagon

Common Sense Is Slowly Arriving

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On Sunday, Red State, reported:

My Mom, a child of the Depression and a young adult during World War 2, even in the Reagan era, was not a fan of the legacy media, then, pretty much the only media. She didn’t trust them too much, and she was fond of an (apocryphal) quote from WW2, from U.S. Navy Admiral William “Bull” Halsey, who, when asked by an aide what he should tell the press about an upcoming operation, replied, “Tell them nothing. When it’s over, tell them who won.”

That’s how military communications should be carried out. There’s a level of security that should be taken for granted, and that means, in certain cases, such as an ongoing operation, telling the media only what they need to know, when they need to know it.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gets it. To that end, he has now put an end to the media wandering around the Pentagon, unbadged and unchecked.

We need to remember that when the military invaded the island of Grenada to end the Russian footprint there, the press was not even informed until three hours after the invasion began (source here). Many Americans blamed the press for the loss of the Vietnam war. Certainly, the enemy propaganda the American press blindly repeated did play a role.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has stated:

“The Pentagon press corps can SQUEAL all they want! We’re taking these things seriously.”

“We’re not allowing everybody to roam around the building. You know, that was the policy before. If you were a Pentagon reporter, you could just walk around the building.”

“No badge, no escort, no nothing. Walk into offices, talk to anybody, who knows where there’s classified information. We’re making the rules more like you might say the White House.”

“If you want to move around the building, you’re going to have a badge. It’s going to be clear. You’re going to be escorted when you do so. And we have expectation that you’re not soliciting classified or sensitive information.”

“The American people see things like that as absolute common sense.”

I think the Secretary of War is acting like a Secretary of War.

When The Deep State Is Confronted, It Fights Back

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On Tuesday, Townhall posted an article about the current deep-state-generated controversy surrounding Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

The article notes:

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday sent a clear message to leakers in the Pentagon. He suggested that those who gave internal information to the media could be subject to prosecution.

One of the problems in the first Trump administration was leaks from various government agencies to the press. The leaks were designed to block the President’s agenda and prevent him from doing his job. Unfortunately, that is still going on and will continue until there are serious consequences to leakers.

The article continues:

The defense secretary further stated, “We take the classification of information, very important.”

Hegseth confirmed that several senior staffers had been fired because they were suspected of leaking information. “It was the result of an investigation … sufficient evidence to believe that they or others near them were party to leaking,” he said.

The secretary alleged that the staffers who lost their jobs were retaliating by slamming him in the press. “Disgruntled former employees are peddling things to try to save their ass,” he told Kilmeade.

The secretary further explained that the leaks are still under investigation and that the DoD could refer the matter to the Department of Justice. “When that evidence is gathered sufficiently … those people will be prosecuted, if necessary,” he said.

Oddly enough, the attacks on Secretary Hegseth intensified after the leakers were fired. Those who want to destroy the Trump presidency are not happy that one of their weapons has been removed.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, Democrats are making as much use of the controversies as possible. Several Democratic lawmakers have called for Hegseth to resign. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) became the first Republican to call for the defense secretary’s firing during an interview with Politico.

“If it’s true that he had another [Signal] chat with his family, about the missions against the Houthis, it’s totally unacceptable,” Bacon said, referring to a New York Times report suggesting that Hegseth shared sensitive information with family members.

Still, President Trump has stood by Hegseth and expressed confidence in his ability to do his job. The administration recently squashed an NPR report claiming that the president is looking to replace Hegseth, calling it “fake news.”

I hope Secretary Hegseth successfully rides this out. We need a few leakers to suffer serious consequences for their actions in order for the leaking to stop.

Paying The Price For Challenging The Status Quo

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Recently, some Pentagon officials were fired for leaking to the press. Another official resigned after allegedly not getting the position he wanted. Then, even more recently, there were calls for the Secretary of Defense to step down. Is it too much to assume that all of these events are related?

On Tuesday, The Federalist reported:

Within hours of one another, The New York Times and Politico dropped hit pieces on Sunday against the Pentagon chief. The pieces were apparently aimed at undermining his leadership of America’s military. While the former used anonymous sources to try and revive the media’s “Signalgate” dud, the latter ran an op-ed from a former Defense Department spokesman — who resigned last week after evidently failing to get the Pentagon job he wanted — alleging “total chaos” at the agency under Hegseth’s direction.

NPR decided to join the pile-on, publishing a piece on Monday containing allegations from an unnamed “U.S. official” that the White House “has begun the process of looking for a new leader at the Pentagon to replace Pete Hegseth.” The White House quickly shot down the claim.

The articles were published on the heels of a major shake-up at the Pentagon last week, which saw the dismissal of several high-level advisers over claims of unauthorized leaking. The officials have since denied the allegations.

The article notes:

Democrats and their buddies in the corporate press spent the entirety of last week fomenting outrage about the Trump administration’s deportation of a Salvadoran national with alleged ties to MS-13 back to El Salvador. Without a drop of shame, these propagandists characterized this alleged wife-beater as just a “Maryland man,” with Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., even going as far as to travel to El Salvador to meet the deported noncitizen.

For a party with record-low favorability ratings among the American people, running to the defense of an illegal alien credibly accused of being affiliated with a deadly gang isn’t exactly great optics. It’s clear Democrats needed a narrative change fast, and their media allies’ new anti-Hegseth blitz represented the perfect off-ramp.

Second, and more important, the D.C. establishment’s continued campaign to oust Hegseth comes from its fervent opposition to the much-needed change he’s bringing to the Pentagon.

For years, the Defense Department has operated within the best interests of the agency’s higher-ups and D.C.’s notorious defense-industrial complex. While high-ranking officials used their coveted positions of influence to advance neo-Marxist ideologies throughout the Pentagon and defense contractors got rich off of America’s military involvement in nonsensical overseas conflicts, rank-and-file service members’ needs were ignored, the country’s military infrastructure crumbled, and the priority of winning wars went out the window.

The article lists the accomplishments of Secretary Hegseth:

Since taking over the reins at the DOD, Hegseth has overseen a noticeable rise in military recruiting, eliminated divisive and destructive DEI ideology, restored standards to military service, scrapped the Pentagon’s immoral and illegal Biden-era abortion policy, ended racist affirmative action policies at U.S. military academies, directed military assets to protect America’s borders, carried out strikes on Houthi terrorists, and more.

Secretary Hegseth is where America needs him to be.

Is Anyone Surprised By This?

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There has been some serious hand wringing about the creation of a new government department–the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. I am sure there are many bureaucrats in Washington that will say it is completely unnecessary. However, the numbers tell the story.

On Sunday, Red State reported:

It was reported on Friday that the Pentagon, the nation’s largest government agency, failed its seventh audit in a row, still unable to fully account for its more than $824 billion budget. Worry not, suggested Pentagon officials, who stressed that they’re making “good progress” toward a clean audit in 2028.

Two thousand twenty-eight? Something tells me that in the minds of Elon and Vivek, more than four years isn’t good enough.

According to reports, the Department of Defense — led by often-under-fire Secretary Lloyd Austin –technically earned a disclaimer of opinion, meaning it failed to provide sufficient information to auditors to form an accurate opinion. 

First question: Why? I’ll venture a guess that the answer is because sufficient information was nowhere to be found, which raises the second question: Why not?

The article concludes:

Incidentally, the Pentagon has never passed an audit since the agency became legally obligated to conduct them in 2018. 

Without mentioning names, as I suggested earlier, I have a feeling that the Defense Department will be held fully accountable for both its expenditures and its initiatives long before 2028.

I think I’ll just leave it here, for now.

The next two years are going to be very interesting.

I Don’t Seem To Remember This Happening Before

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On Sunday, The American Thinker posted an article about some informal meetings now taking place at the Pentagon (as reported by CNN).

The article reports:

If this story of a cabal of Pentagon officials meeting to undermine the incoming constitutional commander-in-chief of the U.S. military had been a rumor circulating on X or I’d received in an email from some random source, I would have discounted it. But that’s not the case; it comes from CNN. This suggests that something is deeply wrong in the Pentagon—the same Pentagon that “forgot” to send absentee ballots to U.S. troops serving overseas, a gross violation of their civil rights, and one that ought to result in courts-martial all the way up to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

According to CNN, Pentagon officials are trying to figure out how to block any orders Donald Trump might issue to protect the Southern border or remove from U.S. soil the millions of unvetted illegal aliens currently occupying the U.S.:

Pentagon officials are holding informal discussions about how the Department of Defense would respond if Donald Trump issues orders to deploy active-duty troops domestically and fire large swaths of apolitical staffers, defense officials told CNN.

Trump has suggested he would be open to using active-duty forces for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations and has indicated he wants to stack the federal government with loyalists and “clean out corrupt actors” in the US national security establishment.

Trump in his last term had a fraught relationship with much of his senior military leadership, including now-retired Gen. Mark Milley who took steps to limit Trump’s ability to use nuclear weapons while he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president-elect, meanwhile, has repeatedly called US military generals “woke,” “weak” and “ineffective leaders.”

Officials are now gaming out various scenarios as they prepare for an overhaul of the Pentagon.

“We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don’t know how this is going to play out yet,” one defense official said.

I believe that the President is required by the Constitution to uphold the law. Border security is part of that law. It is my hope that any military or civilian personnel that interferes with the carrying out of immigration law will be shown the door (or worse) very quickly.

Does Anyone Know Where Our Money Is Going?

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On Monday, American Greatness posted an article titled:

GAO: ‘Unclear’ if Pentagon Tracking Reports of Misused Aid in Ukraine

I don’t know about you, but that headline does not give me the warm fuzzies.

The article reports:

While the Pentagon has assured Congress that no U.S. military equipment sent to Ukraine has been diverted, stolen, or otherwise misappropriated, a new report from the Government Accountability Office could not determine if the Department of Defense was tracking allegations of misuse two years into the conflict.

“If you never look, you will never find it,” a source familiar with how the report was compiled said of the worst-case possibility that aid was being misappropriated.

The report comes as President Biden struggles to keep the supply lines open to Ukraine. Although a majority of Congress supports sending further aid to help hold back the Russian onslaught, and the Senate passed a bipartisan aid package late last month, House Republicans have yet to approve the latest round of now-stalled military assistance.

The United States remains the leading supplier of munitions and other aid to Ukraine, providing more than $42 billion in assistance since Russia’s invasion. Much of it has come through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows the president to transfer equipment from American stores directly to allies. The annual amount was limited by law to $100 million a year until Congress lifted the cap to $14.5 billion.

The sheer tonnage of supplies and the speed of its shipment, according to the GAO report, has left the Pentagon without “quality data” to assess its delivery. Ensuring munitions and materiel arrive in the right hands has led to unprecedented challenges on top of the existing chaos of war. Most officials were evacuated from Ukraine long ago, for instance, and those who remain are restricted from leaving Kyiv to ensure delivery of shipments before it is used or destroyed on the battlefield.

The article concludes:

The GAO included in their report eight separate recommended reforms, which the DoD consented to partly or entirely. In a letter from Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense, that was included in the report, the DoD declined a recommendation to require which allegations of misuse should be recorded and tracked. According to Cooper, the DoD already has sufficient regulations in place.

This will do little to pacify Republicans eager to rein in the war funding.

“The Biden administration has spent two years deceiving the American people, claiming they’ve closely tracked the military material we’ve sent to Ukraine. The GAO’s report not only proves them wrong, it references allegations that U.S. military equipment ended up in the hands of Russian military forces,” Sen. JD Vance, an Ohio Republican and former U.S. Marine, told RCP.

“This is a major problem. I plan to immediately introduce legislation to hold the Biden administration accountable for these errors,” Vance added.

We need a few people in Congress with the backbone to put an end to this ridiculousness–either account for the spending or stop the spending.

Using Taxpayer Money To Attack American Warships

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In February 2023, Antony Blinken at The U.S. State Department posted a Press Release that included the following:

Today, I am announcing our contribution of more than $444 million, exemplifying the continued generosity of the people of the United States for the people of Yemen.  As one of the largest donors, this brings our total to the humanitarian response in Yemen to over $5.4 billion since the conflict began.  The United States’ commitment to alleviating the suffering of millions from the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen remains resolute.

Our additional humanitarian assistance through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)  and the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) will enable our partners on the ground to deliver life-saving aid to Yemen’s most vulnerable people.  To date, our support, combined with the continued benefits and relative calm created by the UN-brokered truce, enabled 2.2 million Yemenis to avoid experiencing acute food insecurity and tens of thousands of others to avoid slipping into famine-level conditions.

While today’s pledges are important, much more is needed.  We urge all donors to give generously to help raise the $4.3 billion the UN will require to provide humanitarian assistance to Yemenis.  Two-thirds of Yemen’s population – 21.6 million children, women and men – need vital aid.  Last year, funding gaps forced the UN to scale back or cut over half of its life-saving programs, including emergency food assistance.  That means intense hunger or life-threatening starvation for more than two million children facing deadly malnutrition.

Humanitarian assistance must also be complemented by economic and development support.  More than eight years of conflict have pushed Yemen’s economy and institutions to the brink.  Families have been left unable to buy basic goods, provide for their children, or access healthcare.  The United States continues our efforts to help stabilize Yemen’s economy and restore basic services and livelihoods.

That’s nice.

On December 3rd, The Epoch Times reported the following:

Several commercial vessels were attacked on Dec. 3 in the Red Sea, the Pentagon confirmed.

“Today, there were four attacks against three separate commercial vessels operating in international waters in the southern Red Sea. These three vessels are connected to 14 separate nations,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

Over the course of around five hours, the Arleigh-Burke Class destroyer USS Carney responded to multiple distress calls from the ships and provided assistance, while also taking preventative action against UAVs launched from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen toward the U.S. warship.

How much more humanitarian aid are we going to send to places where it may be taken from the people it was intended for and used to fight against us?

Moving The Goalposts Instead Of Solving The Problem

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Recently Presidential Hill posted an article about some changes the U.S. Military is making in requirements for recruits.

The article reports:

It was reported last week that the Pentagon recently implemented new rules that allowed 700 recruits rejected over a previous diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to join the military without a waiver.

The rule changes, which took effect in June 2022, permit individuals diagnosed with 38 different medical conditions to join the military provided they have no symptoms and required no medication for a designated number of years depending on the specific condition, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Those diagnosed with ADHD, for example, must be symptom-free for three years, while those diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder must be symptom-free for seven years.

The Mayo Clinic describes Oppositional Defiant Disorder as follows:

Even the best-behaved children can be difficult and challenging at times. But oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) includes a frequent and ongoing pattern of anger, irritability, arguing and defiance toward parents and other authority figures. ODD also includes being spiteful and seeking revenge, a behavior called vindictiveness.

I can’t imagine a person with ODD even making it through boot camp.

The Presidential Hill reports:

The Pentagon’s new recruiting rules come as the US Army is facing recruitment shortages.

In the last fiscal year, recruitment for the Army fell short of its goal by 15,000. The Army subsequently reduced its recruitment goal for FY2023 by 15,000.

According to current statistics, only 23 percent of young Americans meet the necessary standards for joining the military while less than 10 percent are even interested.

Under the revamped rules, potential recruits with a history of ADHD will be able to join if they have completed high school or college, held a job, and have been symptom- and medication-free for three years.

Army Lt. Col. Kim Helgemoe, a member of the Pentagon’s Accession Policy that sets medical admissions standards, said the symptom-free period is to ensure that the recruit is capable of making it through the initial entry training and can “hopefully” have a “successful military career.”

I have no problem with accepting people with ADD or ADHD. My husband could be the poster child for ADD and did very well in the Navy. He is a computer geek, and I suspect from my observations that a lot of computer people have ADD. Their brains simply work differently. However, the real solution is to find out why the recruiting numbers are down and solve the problem.

 

Things To Consider

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If you watch the well-produced televised January 6th hearings, there are a few things that you should keep in mind. I am writing this Thursday afternoon, so I have no idea what we are in for. However, there are a few facts that I doubt will be mentioned in the hearings.

On Wednesday, Just the News reported that the Pentagon had requested National Guard troops for Washington before the January 6th riots. These requests were turned down by the Capitol Police and the Democrats. So who wanted things to get out of hand on January 6th?

The article reports:

An official timeline of the Jan. 6 tragedy assembled by Capitol Police shows that a Defense Department official reached out to a Capitol Police deputy chief, Sean Gallagher, on Jan. 2, 2021 to see if a request for troops was forthcoming, but the offer was quickly rejected after a consultation with then-Chief Steve Sund.

“Carol Corbin (DOD) texts USCP Deputy Chief Sean Gallagher, Protective Service Bureau, to determine whether USCP is considering a request for National Guard soldiers for January 6, 2021 event,” the timeline reads in the lone entry listed for Saturday, Jan. 2, 2021.

The following morning, the timeline states, “Gallagher replies to DOD via text that a request for National Guard support not forthcoming at this time after consultation with COP Sund.”

The assessment of what the Trump rally would be changed as the event drew closer:

“Due to the tense political environment following the 2020 election, the threat of disruptive actions or violence cannot be ruled out,” the new assessment declared. “Supporters of the current president see January 6, 2021 as the last opportunity to overturn the results of the presidential election. This sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent.”

Within 24 hours, Sund had changed his mind and began seeking permission from the political powers surrounding House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to deploy the National Guard as a preventive measure on Monday, Jan. 4, 2021.

The Capitol Police official timeline provides the most succinct summary of a series of events around Sund’s request, some of which have been disputed and at times misreported in the news media.

“COP Sund asks Senate Sergeant at Arms (SSAA) Michael Stenger and House Sergeant at Arms (HSAA) Paul Irving for authority to have National Guard to assist with security for the January 6, 2021 event based on briefing with law enforcement partner and revised intelligence Assessment,” the timeline recorded. “COP Sund’s request is denied. SSAA and HSAA tell COP Sund to contact General Walker at DC National Guard to discuss the guard’s ability to support a request if needed.”

The article notes:

“We went to the Capitol Police and the Secret Service and law enforcement agencies and Mayor Bowser days before January 6, and asked them, ‘Do you want thousands of National Guardsmen and women for January 6?'” Patel (Kash Patel) said in a detailed interview earlier this year. “They all said no. Why did we do that? The law requires them to request it before we can deploy them. And the DOD IG found we did not delay, we actually prepared in a preemptive fashion, which is what we do at DOD.”

Please follow the link to read the entire article. January 6th was a planned attack, but not by the people currently being blamed for it.

This Is Not Reassuring

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Yesterday WND posted an article about the Afghan refugees we are screening in Qatar.

The article reports:

Among the evacuees from Kabul are as many as 100 Afghans who are on intelligence agency terrorist watch lists, including one with potential ties to ISIS, a U.S. official warned Tuesday.

The Afghans, who have been flown to Qatar, are candidates for entry to the United States through Special Immigration Visas (SIV).

The U.S. official told Defense One that at least 100 have been flagged as possible matches to intelligence agency watch lists by the Defense Department’s Automated Biometric Identification System.

A State Department spokesman told DailyMail.com that all SIV applicants are being screened before they are allowed entry into the United States.

The article notes:

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby assured reporters Monday that the Afghans allowed into the United States are undergoing “robust screening.”

However, as Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer argues, the British also have “robust screening.” But a report Tuesday by Sky News illustrates “the unavoidable difficulties involved in this process.”

The British broadcaster reported “a person from Afghanistan on the UK’s no-fly list has been flown into Birmingham as part of the British evacuation operation in a potential security breach.”

We know from experience that the leaders of terrorists groups are not stupid. Why wouldn’t they exploit the chaos in Afghanistan and the chaos at America’s southern border to bring terrorists into America? Our current President has put the lives of all Americans in danger with his domestic and foreign policies.

Letting Down Our Citizens And Our Allies

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On Friday, The Washington Examiner is reporting the following:

Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue has told his British Army counterpart, a high-ranking field-grade officer of the British army’s 22nd Special Air Service Regiment, that British operations were embarrassing the United States military in the absence of similar U.S. military operations, according to multiple military sources. I understand that the British officer firmly rejected the request.

Col. Joe Buccino, a spokesman for the XVIII Airborne Corps, denied that Donahue made such a request.

“The XVIII Airborne Corps denies the central thrust of this story,” the spokesman said. “Specifically, Gen. Chris Donahue, whose sole focus is security at HKIA, never made such a request to any British Army officials and would have no motive for doing so.”

The article concludes:

A bureaucratic tug of war between the State Department, Pentagon, and White House is also disrupting evacuation operations out of Kabul. This is aggravating British, French, and other Kabul-present military authorities. I understand that these governments have been further aggravated by the failure of the White House and Pentagon to communicate adequately, or in some cases, to communicate at all, on their intentions and actions. All these allies admit, however, that only the U.S. military could provide the airfield defense and air traffic control capabilities now on display.

Still, as I noted on Wednesday , the Biden administration’s conduct of the Afghanistan withdrawal has raised deep concerns by allies as to the administration’s credibility and confidence. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, allied officials reemphasized this concern to me on Friday.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It has been a long time since America has so totally botched a military operation and alienated our allies at the same time. In this case I am more inclined to believe the British account of the incident than the American account. Our military leadership does not seem to be reliable right now.

Citing A Non-Existent Report In Order To Fuel The Narrative

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It is no surprise that the mainstream media is trying to blame President Trump for any and all deaths associated with the coronavirus. Not to mention the fact that many deaths reported as caused by the virus have very little to do with the virus. However, one of their recent attempts has failed miserably. There has been a claim that President Trump was briefed on the coronavirus in November. The Washington Times posted an article on April 9, 2020, that corrects the claim.

The article reports:

The Pentagon says a supposed intelligence report cited by ABC News on an emerging COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t exist.

ABC said the report was issued in November by the National Center for Medical Intelligence, an arm of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). It supposedly warned of a pandemic of what would be later named COVID-19.

Relying on sources who said they saw the report, ABC News said the warning was briefed “multiple times” to the DIA, the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Trump White House.

I have learned in recent years that any claim made by unnamed sources tends to be proven wrong as events unfold.

The article continues:

The Pentagon said it did an exhaustive search and could find no such document.

Col. R. Shane Day, a physician who heads the medical intelligence unit, issued a flat denial.

“As a matter of practice, the National Center for Medical Intelligence does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters,” Col. Day said. “However, in the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists.”

A defense official told The Washington Times, “The center is part of the broader Intelligence Community effort to provide intelligence, expert assessments, and pandemic warning to senior U.S. government leaders, with the critical mission of supporting defense policymakers and U.S. warfighters. NCMI and the Defense Intelligence Agency spent considerable time over the last 24 hours examining every possible product that could have been identified as related to this topic and have found no such product.”

November was the date of the first reported victim of the virus, but considering that our intelligence assets in China were severely compromised because of the Chinese hacking into Hillary Clinton’s private server, it it unlikely that we would have had information on the virus.

Our Relationship With Saudi Arabia Is Getting Complicated

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There is a price America pays for not being energy independent. It impacts the cost of living in America, but it also has a very negative impact on our freedom to make decisions about who are friends are around the world. Saudi Arabia is an example of one friend who has done some questionable things. The good thing that the Saudis have been responsible for is making sure oil is traded in American dollars. That is one of a few reasons America has not gone bankrupt. However, the Saudis are also a major player in the Wahabi sect of Islam. This is the sect that was responsible for 9/11 and is a major fund source for mosques and schools in America. There was a recent dust-up in Newton, Massachusetts, about a Saudi-funded social studies program that was teaching things about the Middle East that simply are not true. There are also a lot of questions about what is being taught in Saudi-funded mosques in America.

There are a few recent events that illustrate how complex America’s relationship with the Saudis is. The first event has to do with the families of the victims of 9/11 who want to sue Saudi Arabia as the source of the attack.

The U.K. Daily Mail reports the following:

Officials in Saudi Arabia have reportedly told the Obama administration they will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars of American assets if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible for any role in the September 11 attacks.

The warning was delivered by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir last month during a visit to Washington, the New York Times reported.

The minister said his country would sell up to $750 billion in US treasury securities and other assets before the bill puts them in jeopardy. 

These people play hard ball.

The article cites a New York Times article that states:

The administration has tried to stop Congress from passing the legislation, a bipartisan Senate bill.

Al-Juberi purportedly informed the lawmakers during a trip to Washington that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell a huge chunk of American financial assets on the world market, fearing the legislation could become law and U.S. courts would then freeze the assets.

The Times said Riyadh’s resolve to actually deliver on the threat is dubious, since selling off those assets would be technically challenging and would damage the dollar, against which the Saudi national currency is pegged. 

Under the current US law, foreign nations have a degree of immunity from being sued in American courts.

I don’t agree with The New York Times. I think this move by the Saudis would sink the American economy.

Also keep in mind that there are 28 pages of the 9/11 Congressional investigation that are still secret. Popular wisdom states that those pages have to do with the role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11. It will be interesting to see if those pages get released. President Obama has said that he will release them sometime in the next sixty days.

Meanwhile, President Obama has released nine Guantanamo prisoners to Saudi Arabia.

The Hill posted an article yesterday about the release. The article included the following statement by the Pentagon:

“The United States is grateful to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility,” the Pentagon statement said. “The United States coordinated with government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures.”

I could fertilize my garden with the above statement. First of all, the Saudi government is not known for its humane treatment of prisoners. Second of all, if Saudi Arabia is interested in closing down Guantanamo, they are interested because they want their terrorists back. This is ridiculous, and it is a shame that the Pentagon has been politicized under President Obama to the point where they would make that statement.

The main job of  a government is to keep its people safe. It seems as if that is the only job the Obama Administration is not interested in doing.

 

 

There Are Relationships And There Are Relationships

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I24 News posted a story today about the deteriorating relationship between Israel and the Obama Administration.

The article reports:

Relations between Israel and the US are so bad now that the Obama administration has seen fit to tighten its control over wartime weapons shipments, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday morning. According to the report, citing unnamed senior officials, the White house had requested that the Pentagon put on hold a shipment of ‘Hellfire’ missiles Israel had requested and instructed them to “consult with policy makers at the White House and the State Department before approving any additional requests.”

The change in policy was related to the fact that a UN school was struck by an IDF missile.

This is a bit one-way. We are continuing aid to Hamas as they use human shields and deliberately target civilians. Secretary of State Kerry wanted the blockade of Gaza lifted so that Hamas could receive more concrete to build tunnels to attack Israel. And there has been no decrease in American aid to Hamas even after it became obvious that the aid was being used for weapons and tunnels–not to build hospitals, schools, and homes for the people of Gaza.

The article further reports:

US policymakers, were apparently fine with equipping the IDF with defensive equipment, especially the jointly funded and widely touted Iron Dome, but were concerned about the transfer of weapons of a more offensive nature. They were reportedly particularly worried by the IDF’s widespread use of artillery that provided cover for Israel’s ground incursion into Gaza, because of its less precise nature and higher risk of hurting innocent civilians.

The report quoted a senior Obama administration official saying that the weapons transfers shouldn’t have been a routine “check-the-box approval” process, given the context. “The official said the decision to scrutinize future transfers at the highest levels amounted to the United States saying ‘The buck stops here. Wait a second…It’s not OK anymore.’ “

“They decided to require White House and State Department approval for even routine munitions requests by Israel,” the article reads, citing officials. “Instead of being handled as a military-to-military matter, each case is now subject to review—slowing the approval process and signaling to Israel that military assistance once taken for granted is now under closer scrutiny.”

The Wall Street Journal report paints the weapons issue as part of a widening gulf between the Netanayahu and Obama administrations, which has reached “the lowest point” since Obama took office.

Note to White House–Hamas is a terrorist organization. Sending them money is supporting terrorism. Their charter includes the destruction of Israel. They are not the good guys. If Palestinians want their own state, they should not elect terrorists to run it.

The People Who Make Our Laws Can’t Even Follow Their Own Rules

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CBN News is reporting today that despite passing a law last year that made earmarks illegal, Congress passed more than 100 earmarks for 2014.

The article reports:

Every year, the Pig Book Summary blasts Congress for its wasteful pork barrel projects.

“There are 109 earmarks, costing taxpayers $2.7 billion in fiscal year 2014,” Thomas Schatz, with Citizens against Government Waste, told CBN News.

Congress has even passed millions in spending for agencies who didn’t want the money.

One example of an agency that did not want the money is the $90 million for M1 tanks the Pentagon insists it really doesn’t want.

The article further reports:

“The secretary of the Army said they don’t need to build more M1s. They want to delay this for four years and save $3 billion,” Schatz said. “There are 2,000 M1s sitting idle in the desert of California.”

Meanwhile, the Defense Department is getting $866 million to mostly duplicate research on the very same illnesses and diseases as the civilian sector.

“Breast cancer research can be done at the National Institutes of Health and it’s done –billions of dollars [for] other research done at other agencies,” Schatz charged.

Americans are pinching pennies to stay afloat in the so-called economic recovery, and Congress is borrowing money our children and grandchildren will have to pay back. This is ridiculous. It’s time to vote every Congressman out of office who has supported the runaway spending of recent years.

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Why We Are Still Investigating Benghazi

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Byron York posted an article at the Washington Examiner yesterday explaining why Congress had formed a committee to investigate the Benghazi attack. In the article, he mentions two reasons that have been set forth by the Democrats as the reason to form an investigative committee–to destroy Hillary Clinton as a Presidential candidate in 2016 or some sort of weird Republican fixation. But he puts forth a much more logical reason for a Congressional probe–more than two years later, we still don’t know very much about the attack on Benghazi, why help wasn’t given to the people there, and what the attack was about. That’s why we need a committee.

The article reports:

Republican sources on Capitol Hill say that in general, the Pentagon’s cooperation has been a model of how to deal with such an investigation, while the State Department and White House have been models of what not to do.

If the rest of the administration had followed the military’s example, the Benghazi controversy would likely be over by now.

The probe started with three questions. One, was the U.S. adequately prepared for possible trouble abroad on the anniversary of Sept. 11?

Two, did the government do everything it could to try to rescue the Americans who were under attack for seven and a half hours?

And three, did the Obama administration tell the straight story about what happened?

Republicans in Congress have been reluctant to form an investigative committee–fearing that it would be seen as a political move. That changed with the recent release of emails obtained by Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information request that revealed a White House role in creating a misleading narrative about the attack. From my perspective, the attack and the fact that we did not send help is bad enough, but the political whitewashing and misleading the American people that went on afterward is a disgrace.

I look forward to the answers to the three questions above.

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More Cuts To Military Benefits

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Yesterday Stripes posted an article explaining how the cuts to the military budget will impact commissaries.

The article explains:

The long-feared cuts to military commissaries appear to be real: The Defense Department subsidy would drop from $1.4 billion annually to $400 million under a defense budget proposal the Obama administration plans to deliver to Congress next week, Pentagon officials announced Monday.

The commissary cut will be accomplished not by eliminating any commissary locations, but by reducing the amount of savings over civilian markets that servicemembers enjoy. The cut will be phased in over several years.

A recent study by Defense Commissary Agency, or DeCA, found that using the commissary saves shoppers an average of 30.5 percent annually when compared to other stores off base.

The savings would drop to about 10 percent, defense officials said in a briefing that covered all aspects of the 2015 defense budget, including hardware and military pay.

At that rate, our military would do just as well to shop at the local discount stores. This is a disgrace.

What impact are all the proposed cuts in benefits going to have on the morale of our military and the re-enlistment rate? I really think our government is going in the wrong direction on this. If the current Congress will not put a stop to this, we need to elect a Congress that will.

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Manipulating The Numbers To Disguise Increased Spending

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Breitbart.com posted an article today about the budget compromise recently reached by Paul Ryan and Patty Murray. Congressman Ryan continues to defend the proposed cuts to veteran’s retirement pay. Before I continue, I just want to mention that cutting retirement pay for veterans is breaking a contract that was made with them when they agreed to serve in our military for twenty years or more.

Now, back to the actual point–the spending cuts in this budget do not reduce the deficit–they are math gimmicks.

The article reports:

As Breitbart News has reported, Ryan’s and Murray’s budget deal does not reduce the deficit. In fact, the deal raises the deficit by at least $15.5 billion because of a series of gimmicks that Ryan and Murray employed in the accounting of the deal — namely, double counting of savings like the tactic which was employed in Obamacare, and the failure to include an estimate of the interest on the borrowed money for the first couple of years of increased spending. These are only a few among a series of other misleading statements Ryan has made about the deal.

Congressman Ryan claims that the changes in military pensions are simply a ‘small adjustment.’ The facts do not back up that statement.

The article reports:

Ryan characterized the change as a “small adjustment” in the next paragraph, even though he admitted it could affect veterans by as much as $100,000 or more over their lifetimes, depending on when they retire.

That’s a serious broken promise.

The article reminds us:

In his op-ed, Ryan did not address the proposal in the House of Representatives gaining significant attention already from Reps. Martha Roby (R-AL) and Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA). Roby’s and Fitzpatrick’s plan would restore pensions for all military veterans and offset the savings those cuts create with savings from closing a loophole allowing illegal aliens access to the Refundable Child Tax Credit. Closing that loophole would save $7 billion — more than enough to ensure that the Pentagon gets the money it needs to buy top-notch military equipment.

Why are we taking money away from our military veterans and giving it to illegal aliens? Is this where we want to go?

 

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The Cost Of Mismanagement

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The cuts to the defense budget in sequestration were much larger than they should have been–that was the only way that the Democrats would have even considered sequestration as an alternative to working out a sensible budget. However, the way the cuts have been implemented does not reflect a lot of wisdom on the part of the people making the decisions. Just as in the recent government shutdown, many of the sequester cuts were made in places where it would be most obvious–not in places were it would actually make sense.

On Thursday, Military.com posted an article about one area where the cuts did more harm than good. One place where the Defense Department made cuts was in the air shows put on in various areas of the country. These air shows provide entertainment, but in many cases have a much broader purpose–the provide a chance for Americans to interact with our military.  The air show at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar was cancelled the day before it was supposed to take place.

According to the article, the cancellation of that air show cost the base between $600,000 and $700,000.

The article further reports:

Last year’s air show netted $1.6 million in profit, which goes back into Marine Corps Community Services programs on base, including family readiness programs, the youth and teen center, and fitness programs, officials said.
 
The Miramar air show was originally scheduled for Oct. 4-6, but sequestration cuts grounded many military planes and helicopters. The base asked the Pentagon for a waiver to allow them to fly military aircraft at the show, and when it was denied, officials decided the show would go on anyway.
 
The sequestration version of the air show was to be two days long and feature civilian flying demonstrations and acrobatics, along with military aircraft parked on the tarmac.

And while the show is typically paid for with sponsorship money, appropriated and nonappropriated funds, no appropriated-fund monies were to be used for this year’s event, said Lt. Chad Hill, a Miramar spokesman.

Among other things, the military air shows give Americans a chance to see what their military is doing and to meet many of the members of the military. Aside from raising money to support military families, the shows are a good way to remind the public that there are many brave young men and women serving our country in the military.
Unfortunately, when the government was shut down, the show had to be cancelled again.

The article reports:

Then the government shut down. Base officials continued moving forward with the show, but were told the morning before it was to begin that all nonessential activities — including outreach events like the air show — were not authorized under a shutdown.
 
Many of the acts were already on base preparing when Farnham held another press conference.
 
The Pentagon’s restrictions were “more than I had the authority to overcome,” he said. “The timing probably couldn’t be worse … but it is what it is.”

The fact that the government was shut down was unfortunate, but the fact that the shutdown was managed by a group of petulant leaders who chose to punish the American people for the shutdown was truly despicable. It is a shame that we have such petty people running our country.

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Unsettling News

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Even as we focus on budget battles and the problems of the ObamaCare website, there are still other things going on in the world. One of the more disturbing stories to come out this week was about another possible dry run for a future 911-style attack.

Yesterday The Week posted an article detailing an internal memo from the U.S. Airline Pilots Association, which warns of “several cases recently…of what appear to be probes, or dry runs” of 911-style attacks.

The article reports:

It’s common practice for potential terrorists to carry out dress rehearsals of their planned attacks, and most major terror strikes of the last few decades have involved a dummy-run of some sort. Some have even accidentally involved celebrities.

Before al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in western Pennsylvania, killing almost 3,000 people, they carried out a number of dry runs — including one on a flight carrying Oscar-nominated actor James Woods. Four of the future attackers were apparently sitting in first class with Woods on the Boston to Los Angeles flight, and behaved so strangely — sitting erect in their seats and staring ahead for the whole flight — that the veteran Hollywood star called the FBI the day after 9/11 to report his unsettling experience.

As long as radical Islamists exist, we will have the threat of terrorism. The hope is that if there ever is another 911-style attack, passengers will react like those on Flight 93 (only this time successfully landing the plane).

This is very unsettling news, but hopefully we have learned from past experiences.

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The Question That Seems To Be Ignored

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Fox News is reporting that late yesterday President Obama signed a bill that would send payments to the families of fallen soldiers during the government shutdown.

The article reports:

Carney claimed the bill was “not necessary,” noting that charity group The Fisher House Foundation had just entered into an agreement with the Pentagon a day earlier to provide the benefits in the short-term. 

“The legislation is not necessary,” Carney said, adding that the Defense Department had already agreed to reimburse the Fisher House. 

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who pushed the bill in the Senate, blasted the White House over Carney’s remark. 

“Now, we’re learning the president has taken his political obstinacy to a new low and believes the legislation Congress has passed to right this wrong is ‘not necessary,'” he said in a written statement. “Not only is this legislation necessary it’s the moral obligation of this nation and it’s the spoken will of Congress that we deliver immediate assistance to the families of fallen service members.

There is a part of this story which has been widely ignored. The President agreed to reimburse Fisher House after the government reopens. The President does not have the Constitutional authority to do that–only the House of Representatives is allowed to incur a debt. Under the U.S. Constitution the President does not have the authority to promise to pay Fisher House back. Has anyone in Washington read the Constitution?

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Where Are The Reasonable People?

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Fox News reported today that because of the government shutdown the Pentagon will not be paying death benefits to families of fallen soldiers.

The article reports:

“Unfortunately, as a result of the shutdown, we do not have the legal authority to make death gratuity payments at this time,” said Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman. “However, we are keeping a close eye on those survivors who have lost loved ones serving in the Department of Defense.”

The good news is that the House of Representatives is planning to vote Wednesday on a bill to restore funding for these payments.

The article further reports:

Adding further insult, the families will have to pay for their own travel to Dover. That’s a bill the Pentagon also says it can’t pay because of the partial shutdown.

…After the ceremony at Dover on Wednesday, the families will fly to their home states to conduct private funerals. That’s also an expense the Pentagon says it can no longer pay due to the stalemate.

All of this brings to mind a quote from an article posted on Sunday at rightwinggranny.com:

On Friday, we reported that a Park Ranger admitted being ordered to make life as inconvenient as possible in order to punish Americans during the shutdown.

“We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can,” an angry Park Ranger told the Washington Times. “It’s disgusting.”

This is a government attack on the American people. It needs to be stopped, and the people responsible need to be voted out of office.

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Found On Facebook

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Patriot Graves

Of all the dangers facing our country, perhaps the greatest danger of all is the one that still doesn’t make many headlines — our collective national amnesia. Our history textbooks are sanitized to be politically correct and give our children little sense of the greatness of the nation they live in. The Founders are seldom mentioned unless it is part of a controversy about slavery or some other scandal.

I am often struck by how often decent American kids have nothing good to say about their own country. Their knowledge of the sacrifices made to establish and preserve their freedom is virtually non-existent. They are the recipients of the greatest freedom and opportunity that any society has ever produced, yet they are unaware of the price in flesh and blood that was paid for it.

At my father’s table, I learned love of country in a way that only a Marine could teach it. Dad taught me that patriotism wasn’t a theory — it was flesh and blood, real sacrifice and pain. You are your children’s most important teacher. They are listening.

This weekend, as we celebrate Memorial Day, tell your children about the sacrifices that had to be made to stop the march of fascism and the cancer of communism. Tell them about the beaches of Normandy and the Bataan Death March. Tell them about why there was a Berlin Wall and how free men brought it down.

Remind them about 9/11, what happened at the Pentagon and over the fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Take just a minute in the next three days to teach them to love the things we love and honor the things we honor.

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Something Is Very Wrong Here

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NBC Connecticut is reporting today that three recipients of the Medal of Honor will present the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s highest civilian award, the Citizen Honors Medal posthumously to the six educators that were killed trying to protect their students in Newtown. Connecticut on December 14th. I think that is wonderful–they are being awarded this medal because they were killed trying to protect their students.

However, there is another group of shooting victims that is being denied the honor they have earned. The Department of Defense is refusing to award the Purple Heart to those soldiers killed on the attack at Fort Hood, Texas.

On April 2, Military.com reported:

A position paper, delivered by the Pentagon to congressional staff members Friday, says giving the award, for injuries sustained in combat, to those injured at Fort Hood could “irrevocably alter the fundamental character of this time-honored decoration.”

If you are attacked at your base and people are killed, isn’t that combat? Admittedly it is unplanned combat, but isn’t a lot of combat unplanned?

The article at Military.com further reports:

Thirteen people were killed and 32 injured in the November 2009 shootings on the base. Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged shooter, awaits a military trial on premeditated murder and attempted murder charges.

Fort Hood was a terrorist act–it was not ‘workplace violence.’ Maj. Hasan yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he fired. We are at war–this was an attack by the enemy. We need to acknowledge that and make sure that all the victims of that attack receive the honor and benefits they are entitled to. Meanwhile, we do not hesitate to honor civilians in equally awful situations. Both groups should receive medals in a timely fashion.

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This Really Does Not Look Good

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CNS News reported today that when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Libya in 2011, the Department of Defense pre-positioned ‘assets’ off the coast of Libya in order to ensure her safety.

The article reports:

The fact that the assets were pre-positioned for Clinton’s visit was included in the annual report of the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security (BDS).

CNSNews.com asked the Pentagon if it would specify which military assets had been prepositioned off Libya at the time Clinton’s visit. The inquiry was forwarded to U.S. Africa Command, but a spokesman for that command declined to add any details to what had been stated in BDS report.

“One of the most complex security challenges presented to the Secretary’s [Diplomatic Security] Detail was her equally historic and ground-breaking trip to Libya in October [2011], after the fall of the Qaddafi regime,” said the BDS annual report.

So we are left with a variety of questions. Was our intelligence so far off that we had concluded that Benghazi was safe when we decreased the security provided there? Does America routinely abandon its diplomats in unstable areas without adequate protection while going out of its way to protect their superiors? What did the State Department think had changed in the time Secretary Clinton visited Libya and the time Benghazi was attacked.

Just a note. As hearings convene next week on Benghazi, remember one thing–the person who produced the video that was NOT responsible for the attack in Benghazi is still in jail. How is that possible?

Please follow the link above to read the entire story.

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