Pentagon Fails First Audit, Neocons Demand More Spending!

The Pentagon has finally completed its first ever audit and the results are as many of us expected. After spending nearly a billion dollars to find out what has happened to trillions in unaccounted-for spending, the long look through the books has concluded that only ten percent of all Pentagon agencies pass muster. I am surprised any of them did.

Even the Pentagon is not surprised by the failure of the audit. "We failed the audit. But we never expected to pass it,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan. Can we imagine any large US company subject to the prying eyes of the IRS being so unfazed by the discovery that its books have been so mis-handled?

As with all government programs, but especially when it comes to military spending, the failure of a program never leads to calls for funding reductions. The Pentagon’s failure to properly account for the trillions of taxpayer dollars shoveled in year after year only means, they say, that we need to send more money! Already they are claiming that with more resources – meaning money – they can fix some of the problems identified by the audit.

If you subsidize something you get much more of it, and in this case we are subsidizing Pentagon incompetence. Expect much more of it.

Outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mac Thornberry, warned against concluding that this mis-handling trillions of dollars should make us hesitant to continue sending trillions more to the Pentagon.

The failed audit “should not be used as an excuse for arbitrary cuts that reverse the progress we have begun on rebuilding our strength and readiness,” he said.

The neocons concur.

Writing in the Free Beacon, editor Matthew Continetti (who happens to be Bill Kristol’s son-in-law) warns that now is “the wrong time to cut defense.”

But I agree with the young neoconservative Continetti. I would never support cutting a penny of defense. However the Pentagon’s lost trillions have nothing to do with defense. That is money propping up the high lifestyles of those connected to the military-industrial complex.

Continetti and the neocons love to throw out bogeymen like China and Russia as excuses for more military spending, but in fact they are hardly objective observers. Look at how much the military contractors spend funding the neocon publications and neocon think tanks telling us that we need more military spending! All this money is stolen from the productive economy and diverted to enrich neocon cheerleaders at our expense.

Of course the real problem with the Pentagon and military spending in general is not waste, fraud, and abuse. It is not ten thousand dollar toilet seats or coffee mugs. The problem with military spending is the philosophy that drives it. If the US strategy is to maintain a global military empire, there will never be enough spending. Because there is never enough to control every corner of the globe. But if we are to return to a well-defended republic, military spending could easily be reduced by 75 percent while keeping us completely safe. The choice is ours!

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-11-19/pentagon-fails-first-audit-neocons-demand-more-spending

VOTER FRAUD: Orange County Numbers DON’T ADD UP – Democrats Had 300,000 More Votes for Congressional Seats than for Governor

Orange County, a traditionally conservative enclave in Southern California turned all blue after Democrats found tens of thousands of votes post election day.

Just two years ago in 2016, only 2 Congressional districts in Orange County voted blue–now just two years later every single district voted blue.

Democrat blue wave? More like Democrat election fraud.

From a reader:

I did a bit of my own research, and what’s interesting is in both Stanislaus County (ca-10) and Orange County Republican John Cox beat Gavin Newsom for Governor. John Cox ran a horrible campaign and was virtually invisible. I find it hard to believe that voters would split the ticket — voting R for an unknown guy Governor and D for a super liberal congressperson. Just seems like a BIG red flag.

The election results

Orange County Governor’s race:

Republican John Cox 489,249

Democrat Gavin Newsom 476,827

Orange County House results:

District 39:

Democrat Gil Cisneros 113,075

Republican Young Kim 109,580

District 45:

Democrat Katie Porter 143,144

Republican Mimi Walters 135,120

District 46:

Democrat Lou Correa 85,691

Republican Russell Lambert 40,777

District 47:

Democrat Alan Lowenthal 124,436

Republican John Briscoe 69,942

District 48:

Democrat Harley Rouda 140,323

Republican Dana Rohrabacher 123, 401

District 49:

Democrat Mike Levin 139,480

Republican Diane Harkey 111,778

Total votes in Orange County House races:

Democrat: 776,218

Republican: 590,598

So according to the election results:

300,000 (299,931) more Democrats voted for the Democrats in the Orange County Congressional races than voted fro Democrat Gavin Newsom for governor.

This screams of voter fraud.

And Republican John Cox beat Newsome by 12,000 votes in Orange County.

This makes no sense and points to fraud.

This came from TGP reader:

I’m is lifelong Californian and want this exposed. I was a Democrat until recently and know many former California Democrats like me who are sick of what’s happening in California. These seats were stolen.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/11/voter-fraud-orange-county-numbers-dont-add-up-democrats-had-300000-more-votes-for-congressional-seats-than-for-governor/

NYT series about Moscow’s plot to ‘tear West apart’ is a jewel of psychological projection

Russia has been scheming for decades to splinter the West with civilization-shattering fake news, claims a shocking three-part film series published by the New York Times. The series was filed under “op-ed” for a reason, however.

Russia’s alleged “meddling” in the 2016 presidential election is the “culmination of Moscow’s decades-long campaign to tear the West apart,” according to the scary graphics-filled, spooky music-stuffed video series. The three-part report – safely labelled opinion/editorial – insists that America’s internal political squabbles can be traced back to a “virus” conceived by “KGB spies” in the 1980s. Who knew that the Soviets had Twitter?

“Americans are using Russia’s playbook against one another without the faintest clue,” the NYT series warns. To back up their ironclad claims, the filmmakers interview a former Czechoslovak intelligence service officer, Ladislav Bittman, about all the terrible fake news that the KGB once spread – and purportedly continues to inspire. But how exactly did Bittman become privy to these juicy KGB scoops? The ex-spook never worked for the Soviet security service, and fled to the US in 1968. Just an opinion, basically.

RT’s Murad Gazdiev takes a closer look at the sensational op-ed series – concluding that the evidence-free accusations might be an unfortunate case of psychological projection.

https://www.rt.com/news/444146-nyt-russia-disinfo-kgb-video/

==NATO’s Greatest Enemy is Itself

https://journal-neo.org/2018/11/18/nato-s-greatest-enemy-is-itself/==

Accidents happen. For Norway at the conclusion of NATO’s Trident Juncture 2018 military exercises, such an accident occurred with its Lockheed Martin Aegis-equipped frigate, HNoMS Helge Ingstad.

After a collision with an oil tanker, the frigate’s captain ordered the ship aground to prevent a total loss. The quick thinking may have saved the lives of Norwegian sailors and made salvaging operations easier. Thankfully no lives were lost and only eight injuries are being reported by the Western media.

The NATO exercises the Helge Ingstad was participating in simulated an invasion of Norway. As the Council on Foreign Relations made clear in their article, “NATO’s Trident Juncture Exercises: What to Know,” the imaginary invaders were obvious stand-ins for Russia.

The CFR piece would claim:

The aggressor in the simulation is fictitious, but the setting and the scale of the exercises point clearly in one direction. Tensions between NATO and Russia, which shares an Arctic border with Norway, are running high. In the last five years, Russia has annexed Crimea, destabilized eastern Ukraine, provided military aid to a brutal regime in Syria, meddled in Western elections, and either walked away from or allegedly violated major multilateral security treaties.

Of course none of what the CFR alleges is true and many of the accusations leveled against Russia by the article have long been abandoned by even most in the Western media.

The fact that Norway lost an expensive ship in the middle of this NATO exercise to prepare for a Russian invasion that will never happen suggests that the greatest threat much of Europe faces is from NATO itself, not Moscow.

https://journal-neo.org/2018/11/18/nato-s-greatest-enemy-is-itself/

Maxine Waters’ Career May Be Finished — New Scandal Revealed

California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters is certainly no stranger to controversy and scandal. In fact, she wallows in it. Waters strikes me as someone who believes she is above the law and can get away with whatever she wants. It’s one of the reasons she is seen as one of the most corrupt politicians in Congress.

A new complaint has been filed against Waters and it and the new unfolding scandal surrounding the complaint has the potential to finish off her career. The complaint involves an obscure fundraising tactic that has raked in thousands of dollars from state politicians in exchange for being listed on her slate mailers. This go-around, it involves supporters of a former Los Angeles mayor defeated in the June gubernatorial primary.

A conservative watchdog group named the National Legal and Policy Center is the one who filed the complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Waters, her campaign and a pro-charter school group called Families and Teachers for Antonio Villaraigosa — which backed the former Democratic mayor of Los Angeles.

This is very serious and could in the end not only end Waters’ career… it could also entail jail time. She has the best attorneys money can buy and it looks like she may need them.

https://rwnofficial.com/maxine-waters-career-may-finished-scandal/

Let Parliament Vote on Deal This Week So There is Time to Change it, Says Brexiteer Davis

Former Brexit Secretary David Davis has said Parliament should be allowed to vote on Theresa May’s Brexit proposal as early as this week.

The leading Brexiteer said the early vote would help avoid a Tory civil war and allow the Prime Minister the time needed to push for a better deal before the official divorce date in March 2019.

Many Brexiteers want a guarantee that the UK will be able to leave the bloc’s Customs Union, and will not be blocked by the European Union (EU) from taking back control of trade policy – something not included in Mrs May’s current proposals.

“The reason the party is in disarray is because a large part of it doesn’t like this deal and fears that it would be faced with a take-it-or-leave it in late December,” Mr Davis told the Huffington Post website.

He continued: “That’s what’s driving a lot of people, that we are going to run out of time. The proper way to resolve the issue is to put the deal to the Commons as soon as possible, ideally this week.

“There’s very little on the agenda in the Commons this Thursday, for example. There’s no need to wait for the EU council because this [deal] was approved by the Commission.

“If Parliament decides to reject it, then the Commission has got to deal with the fact that it is unacceptable to Parliament.

“It might choose to walk away and say in that case there’s no deal, I think it’s highly unlikely, but it puts the ball in their court.”

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said he was “not aware of any plans” to schedule a vote on the deal this week.

Mrs May has previously argued that critics must accept her deal and premiership as there is no other option, nor enough time to select a new Prime Minister before the divorce date.

“A change of leadership at this point isn’t going to make the negotiations any easier and it isn’t going to change the parliamentary arithmetic,” she said on Sunday.

Adding: “What it will do is mean that it is a risk that we delay the negotiations and that is a risk that Brexit gets delayed or frustrated.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/11/19/let-parliament-vote-on-deal-this-week-so-there-is-time-to-change-it-says-brexiteer-davis/