Sometimes news passes through the cracks.
Maybe the corporate media missed it, or perhaps they didn’t feel the need to report it.
Maybe they didn’t want to report it.
I feel that’s the case with our bloated military.
I see that the U.S. Army can’t account for $6.5 trillion.
Besides that, 1.3 million records were removed from Pentagon databases last year.
That story came out at the end of August and I totally missed it until I heard something about it last night on the radio.
Wow…$6.5 trillion?
The DoD’s budget for 2015 was $600 billion.
Can someone please tell me how in the hell you misplace an amount of money that’s 11 times the size of your annual budget?
Perhaps we shouldn’t wait until September 2017 to do a full audit of the Pentagon.
We should have done one years ago.
Remember when Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon had misplaced $2.3 trillion?
Probably not – 9/11 happened the next day.
So over the course of the past decade our Defense Department has lost nearly $10 trillion…or half our national debt.
It’s clear to me that the Defense Department is one of the gravest threats to the continued health of this country.
I can’t think of a foreign state, enemy nation, or non-governmental organization that harms America more.
And yet we put up with it.
Worse, we don’t even know about it.
My this country is broken.
Maybe the corporate media missed it, or perhaps they didn’t feel the need to report it.
Maybe they didn’t want to report it.
I feel that’s the case with our bloated military.
I see that the U.S. Army can’t account for $6.5 trillion.
Besides that, 1.3 million records were removed from Pentagon databases last year.
That story came out at the end of August and I totally missed it until I heard something about it last night on the radio.
Wow…$6.5 trillion?
The DoD’s budget for 2015 was $600 billion.
Can someone please tell me how in the hell you misplace an amount of money that’s 11 times the size of your annual budget?
Perhaps we shouldn’t wait until September 2017 to do a full audit of the Pentagon.
We should have done one years ago.
Remember when Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon had misplaced $2.3 trillion?
Probably not – 9/11 happened the next day.
So over the course of the past decade our Defense Department has lost nearly $10 trillion…or half our national debt.
It’s clear to me that the Defense Department is one of the gravest threats to the continued health of this country.
I can’t think of a foreign state, enemy nation, or non-governmental organization that harms America more.
And yet we put up with it.
Worse, we don’t even know about it.
My this country is broken.
The Enrichment Game
Corruption doesn’t stay confined to one area but leaks from one compartment to another.
Its malicious presence is often felt for years, and new leaders that come in are forced to deal with it or contend with it.
Getting rid of it is nearly impossible.
The Atlantic has a good story on political corruption in their October issue.
It’s called There’s Nothing Better than a Scared, Rich Candidate and it goes into the massive amounts of money that go from candidates to consulting firms.
Mainly, money is funneled from rich donors through PACs to candidates and then consultants before the media gets hold of it.
At that point the money is transformed into propaganda designed to reprogram the way you think about a candidate.
Also in the article we’re given a rundown of the failed GOP presidential campaigns this year and last…and how much they spent.
That last one "dropped out after just three primaries, having won four delegates and as little as 3 percent of the vote in the states where he competed."
So much for this idea of fundraising, huh?
Trump has spent $19 million on TV ads so far, and he’s winning.
More, he beat out all the losers that spent tens of millions and now have nothing to show for it but a little more national name recognition.
Mike Murphy is the main political consultant that drove Jeb Bush’s efforts, and while Bush may have lost, Murphy surely profited.
He’s been doing so since 2000 and you’ll get a lot of info on him in the article, as well as a photo – I’m sure you’ve seen him on the talking heads shows on Sunday.
He’s what I call a leech on the political system, and he’s one of the main reasons we continue to have money in politics.
If we got money out of politics, people like Mike Murphy would have to go out and get real jobs.
Can you imagine that?
They can’t, and that’s why the consultants and the industries that fund them via the candidates will continue to proliferate while eroding the trust Americans place in their electoral process.
Its malicious presence is often felt for years, and new leaders that come in are forced to deal with it or contend with it.
Getting rid of it is nearly impossible.
The Atlantic has a good story on political corruption in their October issue.
It’s called There’s Nothing Better than a Scared, Rich Candidate and it goes into the massive amounts of money that go from candidates to consulting firms.
Mainly, money is funneled from rich donors through PACs to candidates and then consultants before the media gets hold of it.
At that point the money is transformed into propaganda designed to reprogram the way you think about a candidate.
Also in the article we’re given a rundown of the failed GOP presidential campaigns this year and last…and how much they spent.
- Ben Carson spent $78 million
- Marco Rubio spent $105 million
- Jeb Bush spent $139 million
That last one "dropped out after just three primaries, having won four delegates and as little as 3 percent of the vote in the states where he competed."
So much for this idea of fundraising, huh?
Trump has spent $19 million on TV ads so far, and he’s winning.
More, he beat out all the losers that spent tens of millions and now have nothing to show for it but a little more national name recognition.
Mike Murphy is the main political consultant that drove Jeb Bush’s efforts, and while Bush may have lost, Murphy surely profited.
He’s been doing so since 2000 and you’ll get a lot of info on him in the article, as well as a photo – I’m sure you’ve seen him on the talking heads shows on Sunday.
He’s what I call a leech on the political system, and he’s one of the main reasons we continue to have money in politics.
If we got money out of politics, people like Mike Murphy would have to go out and get real jobs.
Can you imagine that?
They can’t, and that’s why the consultants and the industries that fund them via the candidates will continue to proliferate while eroding the trust Americans place in their electoral process.
Joining ‘the Fight’
So how can we start to address this monumental problem of money in politics and the corruption it inevitably brings?
Why, bring in a bunch of people that were part of the corrupt system, that’s how!
I see that former Montana congressman Pat Williams has joined the ReFormers Caucus.
This is a group of 151 former elected members of congress, as well as governors, who want to get money out of politics…or at least reduce its influence.
The group started last November with 100 members and has steadily been adding more (this article says they were around in June 2015 and had 60 members).
It’s a 501(c)(3) organization, so they’re happy to take your money, er…donations.
I wonder…what is the goal here?
Sure, getting money out of politics is what they say, but to be completely honest, I wonder how much these 151 people are benefiting themselves as well.
I bet they get nice pay packages (I could find no info on this) and a little taste of the power they once held, but are we honestly getting any closer to getting rid of Citizen United and its evil influence on the land?
I don’t think so.
But then I’m extremely pessimistic, mainly because we live in such a corrupt political system.
Perhaps some of that pessimism will be discussed at the fundraiser Pat Williams is holding at his house on Wednesday for one of our Montana Supreme Court candidates.
Why, bring in a bunch of people that were part of the corrupt system, that’s how!
I see that former Montana congressman Pat Williams has joined the ReFormers Caucus.
This is a group of 151 former elected members of congress, as well as governors, who want to get money out of politics…or at least reduce its influence.
The group started last November with 100 members and has steadily been adding more (this article says they were around in June 2015 and had 60 members).
It’s a 501(c)(3) organization, so they’re happy to take your money, er…donations.
I wonder…what is the goal here?
Sure, getting money out of politics is what they say, but to be completely honest, I wonder how much these 151 people are benefiting themselves as well.
I bet they get nice pay packages (I could find no info on this) and a little taste of the power they once held, but are we honestly getting any closer to getting rid of Citizen United and its evil influence on the land?
I don’t think so.
But then I’m extremely pessimistic, mainly because we live in such a corrupt political system.
Perhaps some of that pessimism will be discussed at the fundraiser Pat Williams is holding at his house on Wednesday for one of our Montana Supreme Court candidates.
