Tag: Military-Industrial Complex

Real National Emergency

The news is full of national emergence stories from severe weather too immigrants to ….well you pick one….but there are some true national emergencies that we should address before too long….like our endless wars and our failing infrastructure and a democracy suffering it’s death throes…..those need addressing and instead we are laser focused on things that will not save our republic from doom.

Where shall we begin?

Seventy years after President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about the cost of a military-industrial complex, America is still stealing from its own people to fund a global empire.

In 2025 alone, the U.S. has launched airstrikes in Yemen, bombed Houthi-controlled ports and radar installations (killing scores of civilians), deployed greater numbers of troops and multiple aircraft carriers to the Middle East, and edged closer to direct war with Iran in support of Israel’s escalating conflict.

Each of these “new” fronts has been sold to the public as national defense. In truth, they are the latest outposts in a decades-long campaign of empire maintenance—one that lines the pockets of defense contractors while schools crumble, bridges collapse, and veterans sleep on the streets at home.

This isn’t about national defense. This is empire maintenance.

It’s about preserving a military-industrial complex that profits from endless war, global policing, and foreign occupations—while the nation’s infrastructure crumbles and its people are neglected.

The United States has spent much of the past half-century policing the globe, occupying other countries, and waging endless wars.

…

The government is destabilizing the economy, destroying the national infrastructure through neglect and a lack of resources, and turning taxpayer dollars into blood money with its endless wars, drone strikes and mounting death tolls.

This isn’t just bad budgeting. It’s moral bankruptcy. A country that can’t care for its own people has no business policing the rest of the world.

Clearly, our national priorities are in desperate need of overhauling.

We are funding our own collapse.

Read On!

https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/06/19/the-real-national-emergency-endless-wars-failing-infrastructure-and-a-dying-republic/

As we ignore our failing infrastructure and the need for a vibrant republic and spend our money on protecting those shit wipe countries that cannot flex their international muscle without the US kissing their asses….this must stop….and stop now….the American people do not deserve the screwing they are taking now even with their own consent.

Step forward and be the change you want to see.

Where do you see this nation, if the trajectory continues, in a decade or further down the line?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

To Capture The Hearts And Minds

The whole country has fallen prey to the warmongering tools of the M-IC….it has wormed it’s way into Congress and even into our higher education….

I can attest to the power that the War Department has over higher education….I was head hunted in college to work for a think tank that was majorly funded by the War Department….I chose another route for my education….as an antiwar person I refused their offer for I would not work for a group that justified war of any type.

But the M-IC is heavily involved with higher education…..

Throughout history, most academics have been the witting or unwitting servants of power. Socrates was accused of failing to honor the gods of Athens and corrupting the youth with his ideas. He was canceled in the ultimate way: sentenced to die. Aristotle, by contrast, tutored the young Alexander the Great, future King of Macedonia, which at the time was occupying Athens. During the rebellion, Aristotle fled to save his skin.

Today, some academics refusing to toe the line are also threatened with death. Chicago University’s John Mearsheimer was placed on the US-funded Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation’s blacklist, where he and others, including myself, were accused of committing “informational terrorism” by expressing fact-based opinions about the war with Russia. At the same time that Ukrainian fascists were placing me on their list, a cabal of liberal staff at my military-funded institution, the University of Plymouth (UK), terminated my position without warning or right of reply.

If we look at the US imperial apparatus, we see that higher education plays a major role.

The Military-Intelligentsia Complex: How Higher Education Enables US Militarism

Then there is the fact that the M-IC wholly owns our do-nothing Congress (do nothing in the sense that the country goes to Hell while they enable war and denies help to the people of the country)

It’s important to note that the $842 billion proposed price tag for the Pentagon next year will only be the beginning of what taxpayers will be asked to shell out in the name of “defense.” If you add in nuclear weapons work at the Department of Energy and small amounts of military spending spread across other agencies, you’re already at a total military budget of $886 billion. And if last year is any guide, Congress will add tens of billions of dollars extra to that sum, while yet more billions will go for emergency aid to Ukraine to help it fend off Russia’s brutal invasion. In short, we’re talking about possible total spending of well over $950 billion on war and preparations for more of it — within striking distance, in other words, of the $1 trillion mark that hawkish officials and pundits could only dream about a few short years ago.

The ultimate driver of that enormous spending spree is a seldom-commented-upon strategy of global military overreach, including 750 U.S. military bases scattered on every continent except Antarctica, 170,000 troops stationed overseas, and counterterror operations in at least 85 — no, that is not a typo — countries (a count offered by Brown University’s Costs of War Project). Worse yet, the Biden administration only seems to be preparing for more of the same. Its National Defense Strategy, released late last year, manages to find the potential for conflict virtually everywhere on the planet and calls for preparations to win a war with Russia and/or China, fight Iran and North Korea, and continue to wage a global war on terror, which, in recent times, has been redubbed “countering violent extremism.” Think of such a strategic view of the world as the exact opposite of the “diplomacy first” approach touted by President Joe Biden and his team during his early months in office. Worse yet, it’s more likely to serve as a recipe for conflict than a blueprint for peace and security.

Congress Has Been Captured by the Arms Industry

All this just proves my point that Congress and the White House are owned by the defense industry….and that does not bode well for the poor or the needy in this country.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

This Should Keep Warmongers In Business.

I recently wrote about the US House attempt to end the free hand the president has to start war but repealing the AUMF,,,,for those that failed to read my post…..

AUMF–The Long Good-bye

As predicted the Senate has rejected the idea of ending the free hand for the president….

On March 29, the Senate voted to repeal two Authorizations for the Use of Military Force, (AUMF’s), one passed in 1991 and another in 2002. The repeal now goes to the House. But those Authorizations are irrelevant to the present; they apply only to the Iraq war. But a third AUMF, passed in 2001, was left untouched. And that AUMF is the only one that has a bearing on the present moment, because it provides legal cover for the many US military operations, open and secret, around the world.

The AUMF of 2001, the one untouched by the Senate, is an entirely different matter. Its content and use are explained in a nutshell here:

“The authorization granted the President the authority to use all “necessary and appropriate force” against those whom he determined “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the September 11 attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups…. Since 2001, U.S. Presidents have interpreted their authority under the AUMF to extend beyond al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan to apply to numerous other groups as well as other geographic locales. ….Today, the full list of actors the US military is fighting or believes itself authorized to fight under the 2001 AUMF is classified and therefore a secret unknown to the American public.

“The AUMF has also been cited by a wide variety of US officials as justification for continuing US military actions all over the world. (Emphasis, jw)…. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service, published May 11, 2016, at that time the 2001 AUMF had been cited 37 times in connection with actions in 14 countries and on the high seas. The report stated that ‘Of the 37 occurrences, 18 were made during the Bush Administration, and 19 have been made during the Obama Administration.’ The countries that were mentioned in the report included Afghanistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria and Yemen.”

Every year the War Department keeps getting more and more and our country gets less and less.

So all you cheerleaders for some sort of war have nothing to fear….we will continue to do what we do best….go to war.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Money Well Spent

Would you like 450,000% return on your investment?

A silly question….of course you would.

Well that is the return on the bribes the Defense industry gave to Congress and all members got their blood money.

I know….I know….I bitch a lot about the M-IC but seriously (?) this is ridiculous….

Military contractors give members of Congress millions of dollars in hopes of boosting the Pentagon budget—a practice that could have a huge payoff for the next fiscal year, according to an analysis published Thursday by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

The new report reveals the industry poured about $10.2 million into 2022 campaign and political action committee (PAC) contributions for members of key committees, and contractors could see a nearly 450,000% return on that investment.

The sector gave $2,990,252 to members of the House Armed Services Committee and $7,175,092 to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, or a total of $10,165,344 for this election cycle.

President Joe Biden requested an $813 billion Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2023. The House committee in June voted to add about $37 billion, while the Senate panel last month voted for a $45 billion increase above the White House request.

As the Public Citizen report—which relies on campaign finance data from OpenSecrets.org—explains:

Notably, the average campaign contribution from the military-industrial complex to a member of the House or Senate Armed Services Committee who voted “yes” to increase military spending for FY23 is more than triple the average campaign contribution from the military-industrial complex to those who voted “no.” Those who voted “yes” received average contributions of $151,722. Those who voted “no” received average contributions of $42,967.

The House committee’s top recipients from the past two years who recently voted to boost the Pentagon budget were Reps. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) at $404,525; Rob Wittman (R-Va.) at $237,799; Mike Turner (R-Ohio) at $150,950; Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) at $131,000; and Elaine Luria (D-Va.) at $127,743. Rogers is the panel’s top Republican.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/07/07/weapons-industrys-10-million-investment-congress-could-yield-450000-return

You still cannot see the corruption going on?

Do you still think that you have a voice in Congress?

You do if you have millions to bribe a Congressperson….if not you are just a means to an end and have little sway over the decisions these slugs have to give.

At what point do we allow this corruption to continue?

Greed and corruption are the politics of today….and the Congress cashes (no pun intended) in….and cases in massively.

Not to worry this corruption will continue and continue….and you worry about the corruption in say Russia….look a little closer to home….you will be surprised.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Stumbling Toward War

Do not be fooled!

The Dems are just as much  warmongers as the GOP!

I know I am a hard Leftists and yet I still read and write about thoughts coming from the Right….most times it is the American Conservative…..why?

They seem to be one of the few that sees the fruitlessness of war and try to point out the way out of the vicious cycle that the M-IC and its paid agents has kept this country in conflict since the end of WW2.

Biden has made his statement on Taiwan and the media is having a field day analyzing what he really meant…..I believe it was not a gaff…it was Biden reassuring his handlers that the money will continue to flow…..

The AC has made its thoughts known…..

So much for strategic ambiguity. Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo on Monday, President Joe Biden committed the United States to militarily defend Taiwan in response to a potential Chinese invasion. A reporter asked Biden, “Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?” To which the president replied, flatly, “Yes.” The reporter followed up: “You are?” The president was adamant: “That’s the commitment we made.”

Pardon me if I sound unduly alarmed, but can we please not go down this road? For the love of God, can America avoid opening up a direct confrontation with the nuclear-armed People’s Republic while we are already engaged in an openly acknowledged proxy war with Russia, another nuclear power?

Biden’s words in Tokyo were so direct and unambiguous they left his aides in the room visibly surprised, according to the New York Times. And understandably so: The commander-in-chief erased what little remained of America’s longstanding policy of leaving it up to Beijing to decide whether it thinks Washington will come to Taiwan’s defense, the idea being that ambiguity and unpredictability can serve as deterrents. If the Chinese know that an attack will be met by a U.S. military response, the only question from their point of view becomes when best to mount it, given the political climate and balance of forces.

Biden’s “commitment,” moreover, would upend decades of American policy: Taiwan isn’t a treaty ally like, say, Japan or Poland, and hasn’t been seen as such by successive administrations. Under the Taiwan Relations Act, which has structured America’s ties to Taiwan since 1979, the U.S. government is obliged to help arm the Taiwanese, but not to directly defend the island.

Stumbling Toward War On Two Fronts

Then there is Henry Kissinger….someone that I have seldom agreed with has made a comment on the Ukraine situation…..

n Monday the CIA announced it had added two stars to its Memorial Wall for fallen officers. The memo is, appropriately for the shady world of intelligence, vague. Perhaps these quiet dead Americans were not killed in Ukraine; perhaps they did not even die recently. But one does wonder. 

In a surreal recent exchange, a colleague wondered how many American lives must be spent on top of the $54 billion in taxpayer money to scrape out a stalemate in East Ukraine. What is our interest there? As if summoned from my least charitable imaginings, an aging swamp creature appeared, indignant in response, to declare the American dead worth it, all the money worth it, to give Russia a defeat. It was, he said, like when we gave weapons to the mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, never mind Osama Bin Laden’s second career. It was, he said, like WWII all over again; if you give a dictator a bit of land, like the mouse and the cookie, he’ll want more of it. 

Perhaps when the war party is sending its people they are not sending their best. I shouldn’t take stale arguments from a man clinging to Cold War glory days as the best case for further American involvement in Ukraine. But I might counter one Cold Warrior with another and suggest that Henry Kissinger’s recent comments at Davos be given due consideration. The former secretary of State said that Ukraine should be willing to concede territory in the east to Russia in pursuit of peace. “Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome,” Kissinger said, as reported in the Daily Telegraph. “Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante. Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.” 

Kissinger warned against the West being caught up in the “mood of the moment.” The mood of the moment is an acknowledged proxy war with Russia, one to which, as the Wall Street Journal reported, the Pentagon is eager to deploy U.S. special forces (let’s pretend they are not already on the ground “advising”). Is this a flex? A threat? Do they think the Kremlin doesn’t read the Journal? 

Not Another Cold War

You cannot depend on the MSM for accurate information….one must look beyond the PR agenda of corporate America…..

The U.S. news media’s treatment of the Ukraine issue has long been characterized by flagrant favoritism. Reports from organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Transparency International, and Freedom House showing that Ukraine’s actual conduct differed markedly from its carefully crafted image as a dedicated young democracy received little coverage in the mainstream press. That willingness to conceal Ukraine’s corruption and authoritarianism has grown even worse since the outbreak of war with Russia. Media coverage moved quickly from ignoring or minimizing inconvenient information about Kyiv’s political and economic system to channeling outright Ukrainian propaganda.

For example, multiple unfiltered stories from Ukrayinska Pravda and other Ukrainian news outlets have become a nearly daily feature on Yahoo’s news feed. Official statements and press releases from Ukraine’s government also appear on Yahoo and other outlets, frequently without an acknowledgment that the accuracy of those accounts could not be confirmed. Contents in the Washington Post and the New York Times, which set the agenda and tone throughout much of the US news media on any issue, similarly have conveyed a solidly pro-Ukraine perspective. Moreover, there are very few competing accounts in those outlets from Russian news sources or even from American analyses that challenge the dominant narrative.

The willingness of the US press to foster a favorable image of Ukraine knows few bounds. During the early weeks of the war, American news outlets even circulated the story about the “Ghost of Kyiv” – the fighter pilot who supposedly became an ace in a matter of days by shooting down numerous Russian warplanes. That account had all the earmarks of transparent propaganda, and the Ukrainian military ultimately conceded that the story was fictional. In the meantime, however, it had served its purpose well as propaganda for credulous Western audiences, and the US press aided that effort. Indeed, the coverage of Kyiv’s retraction of the story was noticeably limited.

The News Media’s Ukraine Whitewash Grows Worse

I wish people would stop accepting BS as fact…use your brain….once in awhile…..

Be Smart!  Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

News From Ukraine

You remember Ukraine right?

With all that is happening I thought you might have forgot the conflict.

Pres. Biden has made it very clear that we will be in Ukraine “as long as it takes”….(that should scare the crap out of Americans)

On the final day of the NATO summit in Madrid, President Biden declared that the US and NATO will support Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes’ for Kyiv to win its war against Russia. He also said that his administration will be announcing a new $800 million weapons package for Ukraine in the coming days.

“We are going to stick with Ukraine and all of the Alliance is going to stick with Ukraine as long as it takes to, in fact, make sure that they are not defeated by… Russia,” Biden said at a press conference.

(antiwar.com)

Then the news came out that the US will gladly throw more good money after the bad we have already thrown at Ukraine (and what has it accomplished?)

The Biden administration on Friday announced a new $820 million weapons package for Ukraine, which includes National/Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) for the first time.

The NASAMS is a joint project between the Norway-based Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace and Raytheon, the US weapons maker that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin worked for as a board member before taking his post at the Pentagon.

The NASAMS is an air defense system with a range of over 100 miles and is used to protect the air space around the White House and the Capitol Building. US officials made it known earlier in the week that Washington would be sending the NASAMS to Ukraine.

The new weapons package also includes additional ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), up to 150,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition, and four additional counter-artillery radars. The money for the arms is being pulled from the $40 billion Ukraine aid bill that Biden signed in May.

Of the $820 million, $50 million is for the HIMARS ammunition and uses the presidential drawdown authority, which allows Biden to send Ukraine arms directly from the US military’s stockpiles. The remaining $770 million is for the rest of the weapons and comes from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), an authority the president can use to purchase weapons for Kyiv.

(antiwar.com)

Seriously more  money?

Yep and even called for billions more to rebuild the country…..

A two-day conference on Ukraine’s future reconstruction efforts kicked off in Switzerland on Monday, and Ukrainian officials put the price tag for their “recovery plan” at $750 billion.

Addressing the conference virtually, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the reconstruction of Ukraine is a “common task of the entire democratic world — all countries, all countries who can say they are civilized.”

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the funding would need to come from grants and loans from partner nations, independent organizations, corporations, and Ukraine’s own budget. But he said Ukraine believes the “key source of recovery should be confiscated assets of Russia and Russian oligarchs.”

(antiwar.com)

Using frozen assets would be outright stealing

If this is truly about the security of Europe then why is the US spending all our taxpayer money protecting Europe.  If Europe is truly concerned about their security should they not be doing more and wasting more of their money?

Just wondering.

Those sanctions on Russia oil……

As Russia is making more money from oil sales now than it was before the war, the US is looking at ways to hamper Moscow’s profits while not causing another spike in prices. One idea G7 leaders are exploring is placing a price cap on Russian oil, a plan doomed to fail as it would need the cooperation of Vladimir Putin as well as China and India, which have significantly stepped up their imports of Russian crude.

“I suggested a while ago that what we should consider doing is putting a cap on the amount of money that… the world would pay for Russian oil,” Biden told reporters. He said that he delegated a team to “sit down and work out that mechanism” for the price cap. “We think it can be done,” he said.

(antiwar.com)

I did not think sanctions were the answer and so far I was proven right.

The conflict in Ukraine is ripping funds from this country…..funds we need to aid the American people….and yet Ukraine is far more important than you and your family.

And the war goes on….and the American cash flies out the door….

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

As Weapons Pour Into Ukraine

The hostilities foisted on Ukraine by Vlad the Invader and his ‘forces of evil’ the West has shoved numerous weapons up the butt of Ukraine….new missiles, anti-tank, anti-personnel, air support systems all donated with the hope that it will be a long war (at least that is the hope of the M-IC)…..

Since Russia invaded on February 24, the US pledged about $2.6 billion in military aid. According to media reports, President Biden is preparing to announce yet another weapons package for Ukraine that will be similar in size to the $800 million one that was announced last week.

More money more money…..

President Biden announced another $1.3 billion in aid for Ukraine. Of that amount, $800 million will go towards a new weapons package, and $500 million will go directly to the Ukrainian government for economic assistance.

The new package brings the total military aid pledged by the Biden administration for Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24 to a whopping $3.4 billion. Including direct economic assistance given to Ukraine, the total aid climbs to $4.4 billion.

(antiwar.com)

Why would anyone want this war to be a protracted war?

Why do you think? CASH!

The war in Ukraine will indeed be a bonanza for the likes of Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. First of all, there will be the contracts to resupply weapons like Raytheon’s Stinger anti-aircraft missile and the Raytheon/Lockheed Martin-produced Javelin anti-tank missile that Washington has already provided to Ukraine by the thousands. The bigger stream of profits, however, will come from assured post-conflict increases in national-security spending here and in Europe justified, at least in part, by the Russian invasion and the disaster that’s followed.

Indeed, direct arms transfers to Ukraine already reflect only part of the extra money going to U.S. military contractors. This fiscal year alone, they are guaranteed to also reap significant benefits from the Pentagon’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI) and the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, both of which finance the acquisition of American weaponry and other equipment, as well as military training. These have, in fact, been the two primary channels for military aid to Ukraine from the moment the Russians invaded and seized Crimea in 2014. Since then, the United States has committed around $5 billion in security assistance to that country.

According to the State Department, the United States has provided such military aid to help Ukraine “preserve its territorial integrity, secure its borders, and improve interoperability with NATO.” So, when Russian troops began to mass on the Ukrainian border last year, Washington quickly upped the ante. On March 31, 2021, the U.S. European Command declared a “potential imminent crisis,” given the estimated 100,000 Russian troops already along that border and within Crimea. As last year ended, the Biden administration had committed $650 million in weaponry to Ukraine, including anti-aircraft and anti-armor equipment like the Raytheon/Lockheed Martin Javelin anti-tank missile.

How Pentagon Contractors Are Cashing in on the Ukraine Crisis

There is one drawback that should be considered…..all those weapons and zero chance of tracking who gets them or just where they go…..

A US official said the White House has “almost zero” ability to track the weapons it is sending to Ukraine. So far, President Joe Biden has approved over $3 billion in arms shipments to Kiev. 

Speaking with CNN about the weapons, one source said, “we have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero. It drops into a big black hole, and you have almost no sense of it at all after a short period of time.”

The source said the US lacked personnel “on the ground,” making it nearly impossible to track the movement of weapons. Another source told CNN Ukraine was incentivized to lie to get access to more weapons, saying “It’s a war – every statement is an information operation, every interview. Every Zelensky appearance broadcast is an information operation.”

https://libertarianinstitute.org/news-roundup/white-house-has-almost-zero-ability-to-track-weapons-it-sends-to-ukraine/

The truth be known…,the US has NO idea where these weapons will wind up…..no accountability or responsibility….just shove the weapons up their butts and hope for the best….as long as the check does not bounce who gives a f*ck?

The same with every war.

Mark my words these ‘lost’ weapons will be used again.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Defense Firms Whine

The purveyors of destruction are whining about the possibility they will be paying their taxes….

Defense companies are warning investors they could owe billions of dollars in additional taxes this April unless Congress repeals or defers a law that would tax research and development expenses.

Some say it will discourage American companies from making research-and-development investments at a time when the U.S. is increasingly competing with China both militarily and commercially.

“We firmly believe, and everybody we talk to in Washington understands, it is bad public policy,” Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes said Wednesday at a Barclays investment conference. “It discourages investment in innovation.”

Companies have been able to write off R&D expenses since 1954, but the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act requires companies to begin claiming R&D expenses on their taxes. The annual claims must be spread over a five-year period beginning in 2021. 

“The requirement for companies to capitalize and amortize R&D expenses amounts to a significant tax increase, which will negatively impact innovation,” the National Defense Industrial Association, a trade group that represents more than 1,500 large and small firms, said in a recent assessment of the defense industry.

https://www.nextgov.com/cio-briefing/2022/02/defense-firms-brace-billions-dollars-new-taxes-and-hope-congressional-relief/362494/

Seriously?

Since 9/11 the defense industry has generated $7.35 trillion in revenue.

Gone are the days when most of the defense budget was spent directly on soldiers. Since 9/11, war has become “modernized” — which means it’s fought with extremely expensive weapons bought from highly profitable private-sector companies.

Then there are those attractive packages for the industry’s CEOs…..

A Project On Government Oversight analysis of executive compensation at the top five Pentagon contractors – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon – found that the average compensation package of a CEO at one of these firms was approximately $21.5 million last year, according to the firms’ Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Total compensation is the sum of base salary, bonuses, stock awards, option awards, incentive compensation, deferred compensation (including changes in pension value), and all other compensation.

Sorry for the wandering diatribe but my point is that the taxpayer is basically subsidizing these packages…..

A Project On Government Oversight analysis of executive compensation at the top five Pentagon contractors – Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon – found that the average compensation package of a CEO at one of these firms was approximately $21.5 million last year, according to the firms’ Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Total compensation is the sum of base salary, bonuses, stock awards, option awards, incentive compensation, deferred compensation (including changes in pension value), and all other compensation.

Publicly held U.S. corporations, ranked by DoD contracts CEO pay, 2020 Pentagon contracts, 2020
LOCKHEED MARTIN $23,360,369 $75,212,351,608
RAYTHEON TECHNOLOGIES $19,407,572 $27,405,894,269
GENERAL DYNAMICS $19,328,499 $21,842,409,577
BOEING $21,074,052 $21,737,405,195
NORTHROP GRUMMAN $20,807,144 $12,334,259,578
HUNTINGTON INGALLS INDUSTRIES $6,440,417 $7,786,450,023
HUMANA $16,489,639 $6,922,421,962
L3HARRIS TECHNOLOGIES $15,452,653 $6,165,347,736
GENERAL ELECTRIC $73,192,032 $4,408,978,372
LEIDOS HOLDINGS $12,319,624 $3,127,617,234
CENTENE $24,956,777 $3,108,731,869
MCKESSON $15,435,470 $2,847,873,788
OSHKOSH $8,106,122 $2,497,907,347
SAIC $6,936,702 $2,379,197,494
FLUOR $11,236,632 $2,320,386,199
BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON $8,095,433 $2,308,782,906
AMERISOURCEBERGEN $14,295,140 $2,143,834,610
AECOM $9,320,888 $1,971,579,509
TEXTRON $17,770,781 $1,964,808,269
KBR $9,864,381 $1,963,741,418
TOTAL $353,890,327 $210,449,978,961
AVERAGE

My point is if they can find the cash to pay these CEOs millions then they can find the  cash to pay their damn taxes….I have to then they should also.

CEO pay is obscene…..Taxpayers should not have to subsidize sky-high compensation levels for military contractor CEOs that perpetuate the profit motive for war.

When will enough be enough?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Closing Thought–22Oct20

I have had many conversations about our many many endless wars….and I am asked that if I think they are so bad how can they still be fighting wars?

I have a very clear and succinct answer…..Think Tanks.

I am not a fan of most think tanks for they paid to make manure look like sirloin…..and our wars are no different.  I gave my thoughts here on IST…..https://lobotero.com/2017/09/20/closing-thought-20sep17/

The American Conservative (yes I read a conserv publication has looked into this…..as well……

The top 50 think tanks in America, as ranked by the University of Pennsylvania’s Go To Think Tank Index, received over $1 billion from U.S. government and defense contractors. The top recipients of this funding were the RAND Corporation, the Center for a New American Security, and the New America Foundation, according to analysis by the Center for International Policy.

Donations to these think tanks came from 68 different U.S. government and defense contractor sources, under at least 600 separate donations. The top five defense contractor donors to U.S. think tanks were Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martina and Air Bus.

Top think tank funders from within the U.S. government include the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Air Force, the Army, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department. The defense contractors that forked over the most to think tanks were Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Airbus.

The RAND Corporation alone received over $1 billion between 2014-2019, accounting for approximately 95 percent of its funding that the report tracked. Nearly all the money came from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ($110 million,) the U.S. Army (over $245 million,) and the U.S. Air Force (over ($281 million.)

Top 50 U.S. Think Tanks Receive Over $1B from Gov, Defense Contractors

Then there is the MSM….they hire “experts” to make these wars acceptable…..both print and broadcast….for most are now owned by the very M-IC corporations that are funding the “whitewash” of our worthless endless wars.

If instance the NYTimes has had a section called “At War”….well it has decided to drop the section altogether

Following the announcement Tuesday that the New York Times “At War” section—which has explored the “experiences and costs of war” for the past two and a half years—is ending this week, peace advocates were quick to note that the United States’ actual “forever war” outlasting a forum dedicated to covering it should be a sobering reminder of the nation’s destructive and bloody foreign policy nearly two decades after the invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq. 

The news came just one week after Stars and Stripes provided an account of U.S. military veterans who fought in Afghanistan watching their children deploy to the same ongoing war.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/10/14/imperial-irony-new-york-times-announces-halt-war-section-even-endless-us-war

The whitewash and the justification for war and the deaths of Americans proceeds…….with very little notice.

Final Thought:  Tonight is the final debate and I will offer analysis in tomorrow’s posts.

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The Myth Of The M-IC

I have written many times on the power that the Military-Industrial Complex (M-IC) holds over our nation….and I have even gone so far as to agree (some what) with accusation from Trump that the generals are in the pocket of the M-IC…..

Here are my thoughts on the M-IC…….https://lobotero.com/2019/01/28/what-is-the-military-industrial-complex/

And there is more……https://lobotero.com/2019/03/20/the-military-industrial-complex/

Then there is the shock that I agreed with Trump on anything…….https://lobotero.com/2020/09/09/in-defense-sort-of/

To be fair not everyone agrees with me about the M-IC top heavy with generals and they they are influenced by the corporations.

The rebuttal comes from the American Enterprise Institute, a group that gets donations from the M-IC and in this case is being used as a PR weapon to counter the opinions voice by me and the president…..

It is hard to think of any U.S. president that Donald Trump resembles less than Dwight D. Eisenhower. Yet Trump managed to evoke the comparison this week, when he charged that senior American military officials are more interested in serving the interests of arms manufacturers than in serving the interests of the U.S. The military, he said, advocates war “so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”

For some observers, the allegation brought to mind Eisenhower’s farewell address in January 1961, in which he cautioned that a mighty “military-industrial complex” could “endanger our liberties” and strangle the American economy. Since then, Eisenhower’s speech has been cited by critics who warn that an expansive foreign policy will ruin the nation’s prosperity and freedom alike.

Yet just as Trump was wrong in arguing that Pentagon officials are motivated by greed rather than patriotism, Eisenhower — a far wiser leader — was more wrong than right about the military industrial-complex.

Trump, Ike and the Myth of the Military-industrial Complex

I wonder how much that rousing defense of the M-IC will cost the industry?

Just a point here….where do you think that retired generals go to work after their retirement?….I mean after they write their book….that is.

Go to the corporations website and look at their officers…..they are heavy with generals…..how do you think certain weapon systems make it through the process even when they are proven to be waste of money (think F-35)?

Not all generals are in the pocket of defense contractors but the ones thinking of retirement are thinking of a way to make cash out of their service.

Once again….I will agree with Trump on this (on principle that is)…..

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