Someone At The Pentagon Needs Jail Time

On the heels of the release of tens of thousands of pages of classified documents dealing with the Afghan campaign in the war on terror, we find that the Defense Department cannot account for $8.7 billion of the $9.1 billion appropriated for reconstruction in Iraq. The special inspector general for the project said this occurred because the agencies did not set up the proper accounts with Treasury.

“This situation occurred because most DoD organizations receiving DFI (Development Fund for Iraq) funds did not establish the required Department of the Treasury accounts and no DoD organization was designated as the executive agent for managing the use of DFI funds,” the report states.

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) finds that only one Defense organization actually set up the accounts required by the Treasury. Federal News Radio

The money that cannot be accounted for represents nearly all the money allocated for the project. This is blatant disregard for the taxpayer and the people who did not follow the rules for establishing the accounts should all go to jail. They should spend time in jail even if the money is found. The abuse of the taxpayer is ongoing and it has to stop.

The federal government has waste, fraud, and abuse of the money taxpayers have extorted from them. Agencies misplace money and cannot account for it. We are not talking about rounding errors or chump change, we are talking billions of dollars that people work hard to earn before it is taken from them by the government.

ALL government agencies must be fiscally responsible with our money and must be able to account for it. If they cannot account for it then they need to spend time in jail.

It is also important to keep in mind that the kind of bureaucracy that exists in Defense and all the other agencies that have wasted or lost our money (including the billions in waste from stimulus and TARP) are the same kinds of bureaucracies that will run our health care.

If the government cannot keep classified documents from being compromised and released by the tens of thousands and it cannot keep track of billions of dollars what makes anyone think that the government will be able to safeguard our medical records and keep fiscal discipline in the health care system?

It is time to hold people accountable and this means putting them in jail if they screw up.

Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Big Dog

Gunline

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Obama And Other Liberals, Are You Listening?

Here is a beautiful song that makes a very clear and valid point.

Only Israel has NO right to defend itself:

No other country is bashed for defending itself the way Israel is. Each time the country responds to attacks it is deemed the bad guy and the response disproportionate. This is because a huge number of people in the world (and nearly all of the UN) hate the Jews.

The attitude of Obama, his regime, and his liberals/progressives is on the side of the Jew haters.

Anti Semites all.

Stand with Israel and against Antisemitism.

Never surrender, never submit.
Big Dog

Gunline

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Republicans Play Politics With Defense Spending Bill

Oh the left is up in arms! The Defense Appropriations Bill is before the Senate and it is usually a bill that passes quickly but Republicans are using legal procedural tactics to delay the vote on the bill. The reason for this is obvious, they want to take up time with this bill to delay getting to the health care bill. This is perfectly acceptable and in no way harms the troops.

The bill had a cloture vote at 0100 this morning and Democrats got enough votes for cloture. They then immediately asked for the bill to be voted on but at least one Republican objected. This means there will be 30 hours of debate on the bill and it will be voted on Saturday morning at 0730. The defense funding ends at midnight but the delay to Saturday morning will not affect anything in defense.

The Republicans are smart to require all procedures to be followed and to use up time. If they can keep prolonging the health care debate by using parliamentary procedures and as long as it does not hurt the troops, which it does NOT, then it is OK.

Democrats are indignant about all of this and want to know how Republicans can do this to the troops. These guys have short memories and seem to forget all the times they opposed troop funding and delayed defense bills. The White House site is scolding the Republicans and using quotes from Republicans that were used in the past to oppose delaying funding the troops:

“Playing politics with the critical funding that our troops need now is political theater of the worst kind.” – Sen. John Cornyn, [Press Release, 4/26/07]
“We have plenty of time and plenty of opportunity to have political debates… but it’s just unconscionable to me to tie the hands of the very troops that we all say we support.” – Sen. John Cornyn, [Transcript, Senate Republican News Briefing, 4/10/07]
“Every day we don’t fund our troops is a day their ability to fight this war is weakened.” – Sen. Mitch McConnell, [Press Release, 3/31/07]
“No way to treat the troops, and it is entirely inconsistent with [Senators’] expressions of support for the troops.” – Sen. Mitch McConnell, [Congressional Record, 10/4/07]
“I don’t understand this attitude of, ‘We can play with; we can risk the lives of these troops by waiting until the last possible minute to get the funding to them.” – Sen. Jon Kyl, [FOX News Transcript, 4/10/07]
“Our obligation to those troops must transcend politics.” – Sen. Jon Kyl, [Press Release, 11/8/07]

All of these quotes were in response to Democrat opposition or delay with regard to troop funding bills. This list of quotes proves that Democrats were guilty of the very thing they are now acting high and mighty about. If Democrats were not guilty of the same thing in the past then these quotes would not exist.

The truth is that when the time for debate is over the bill will pass and all the Republicans will vote for it. They are just using all the time allotted for the debate.

Democrats act as if this delay will be the end of the world. When Obama took 90 days to decide on the troop request for Afghanistan the Democrats said he was deliberative and could not rush into a decision. Republicans use the 30 hours allotted for debate and they are the ones delaying the troops and causing harm.

Another point of contention in this bill is that Democrats added a “doc fix” to it. This is a non defense item that will raise the reimbursement to doctors under Medicare. This does not belong in the Defense bill but it was put in so it would be assured of passage. Putting it here rather than in the appropriations for Medicare allows Congress to hide the true cost of Medicare. This will go against defense when it really pays for Medicare. This is one of the accounting tricks I discussed in the past. The cost of Medicare is much higher than reported because of things like this, which happen every year.

This is the bill that Democrats wanted to add a 1.9 trillion dollar provision to raise the debt ceiling. They could have put it in the appropriate appropriations bill but were afraid they would not get cloture so they were going to put it in the defense bill where they knew they would. It was not added because of other concerns including demands for a balanced budget. If it had been added then I would have expected all Republicans to vote against it.

They would still get a defense bill and fast but it would be without the debt ceiling provision.

In any event, it is the Democrats who are playing politics with the defense bill. They wanted to use it to slip the debt ceiling provision in and they have included the “doc fix” both of which are political issues. Let’s get it clear, the only reason this is in the defense bill is because it will pass that way and so they can hide the true cost of Medicare. The impact on our debt does not change but they can hide the true cost of the Medicare program.

This is what they will do every year if health care overhaul is passed. They will put anything that adds to the cost in other bills to hide the cost and the deficit will continue to increase while they lie about why.

The bottom line is, regardless of all the grandstanding being done by Democrats, the bill will pass and the Republicans will vote for it. It will not hurt the troops or defense.

The Republicans are within their right to use the procedures and they did so. If the Democrats wanted this voted on before the deadline then they should have introduced it earlier. The delay is all their fault and it is a failure of leadership.

At least Republicans are doing things legally. The Democrats stopped the reading of an amendment this week and did so in complete violation of Senate rules. They just decided they were going to stop it and allow the sponsor to withdraw the amendment. This is a violation of Senate rules but that did not bother the Democrats.

Yet when Republicans use the rules the Democrats get upset.

The hypocrisy makes me sick.

I do love it though. This forces them to commute to the Senate chamber in the huge snowstorm that is heading toward DC.

How appropriate considering the snow job the Democrats are involved in.

Big Dog

Gunline

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Obama Cuts Defense and Adds Illegals

I have had a go around with several people who claim that Resident Obama is actually increasing Defense spending. It is true that Obama has increased the budget 4% but he took the war funding, which was not part of the Defense budget (it was funded from other sources) and placed it under Defense but the money did not go with it. This means that The DOD will have a budget cut.

As has been reported, the 4% increase in defense spending proposed by Secretary Gates is actually 4% less than what the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted; and, if taken alongside the fact that this budget attempts to fold in spending previously funded by supplemental war budgets, the supposed 4% increase is actually a $8 billion cut in defense spending. The Army is worst hit by folding supplemental spending into the base budget, as it was receiving the most ad-hoc funding for Iraq and Afghanistan. Ace of Spades

Ace goes on to explain this for those who care to look at it. It is easy to understand but in DC math this is considered a budget increase. It definitely is NOT.

While all the grenades are being lobbed around by the bumbler in chief, he continues to throw so many things at the public that it cannot keep up. On top of the economy, the omnibus, the trillions in spending, the 90% taxes to punish people whose contracts were honored, Iranian rockets, North Korean missilesm bows to kings, ACORN and the census, shooting pollution into the sky to cool the planet and all the other distractions, Obama is now ready to make millions of ILLEGALS into citizens.

Drudge is reporting that the New York Times will have a page 1 story tomorrow on Obama’s plan:

IMMIGRATION BILL THIS YEAR: Obama to begin looking for illegal immigrants to become legal, NY TIMES planning to lead in Page Ones on Thursday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE… Developing…

It is time to gear up for a big fight. We cannot allow millions of lawbreakers to become citizens. They broke the law and we need to get rid of them when we find them. We cannot afford to have these blood sucking leeches be rewarded for breaking the law. You get more of what you reward and if we reward these people with citizenship then we will get more and more ILLEGALS coming here expecting the same deal. The amnesty that was provided two times before was billed as necessary to take care of the problem and it would never have to happen again. Now we are looking at millions more becoming citizens, being rewarded for breaking the law.

I read somewhere that immigrant groups (the ones that work hard to help illegals) had John McCain at some meeting looking for his help on this issue. I remember that they all left without a warm and fuzzy feeling because McCain indicated they were on their own. I believe he told them that they made their choice by picking Obama and they needed to go to him for what they wanted.

If I am not mistaken, McCain was basically telling them that he put his neck out for them during the last amnesty debate and bucked his own party which ended up costing him political capital. His message was, I was there for you and in the election you overwhelmingly supported Obama so go ask him for help, don’t come to me.

If that is true then maybe McCain finally got the message. We need to be tough on this. Pay close attention because this is all about politics. Democrats want to increase the number of votes they receive and they can do that by rewarding ILLEGALS with citizenship. Any member who votes for this needs to be voted out of office in 2010. They need to know that is what their vote will cost them.

We will see how this pans out when the NYT publishes the article.

Related:
Flopping Aces

Big Dog

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Defense Cuts Will Lead To Disaster

A Senate Democrat is warning of painful cuts in the Defense budget which should come as no surprise because Democrats love to cut Defense in order to funnel more money to social programs. We are fighting a war on two fronts (even if Democrats call it something else) and we are being threatened by scoundrels from around the world so now is definitely NOT the time to cut the Defense budget but cut they will.

This comes at a time when news reports indicate that China has developed a missile that is capable of destroying US Aircraft Carriers. The Chinese have not wasted time ramping up their military capabilities and they are certainly more of a threat now than they were in the past.

Now is not the time to cut Defense. There are wolves at the door and the guardians of freedom come from the people who depend on the Defense budget. In all reality, who else will defend us from the threats we face?

If you expect it to be Obama and his minions you are out of your mind.

It also won’t be those who benefit from increased spending on social programs. Unless, of course, we could make them serve in the military. That would allow them to earn money and actually give something back to this country.

Big Dog

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