Merry Christmas
The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featuring:
The Messy Truth About Van Jones
by Michelle Malkin
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liar-nObama's Pentagon Waste and Outsourcing
Lewis Morris: Now that we have a real businessman headed to the White House, "business as usual" in Washington may start getting a little un-usual. At least for Beltway insiders, anyway. For the rest of us, we're hoping to see some common sense kick in.
This week it seems to be the defense industry that's getting the attention. But the Pentagon may have brought that on itself by attempting to bury a report that revealed $125 billion in wasteful and fraudulent spending.
An in-depth exposé in the Washington Post explains how the Pentagon commissioned a study in 2014 to look for ways to make its "enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient and reinvest any savings in combat power."
The study was conducted by the Defense Business Board, a federal advisory panel made up of corporate executives and consultants from McKinsey and Company. The final report identified $125 billion in wasteful spending to be cut over five years by streamlining bureaucracy through attrition, early retirements, and curtailing high-priced contractors.
Top brass, however, were terrifically embarrassed by such a large amount of waste in the Defense Department. To give some life to their concern, consider the fact that $125 billion represents about 20% of the Pentagon's annual budget. On top of that, the number of back-office civilian and military personnel is roughly equal to the total number of troops on active duty, a one-to-one ratio. And if that isn't enough to shock you, 298,000 of those back-office personnel are military, not civilians or contractors.
It's little wonder that the Pentagon wanted to bury this report, and Barack liar-nObama was no doubt a big supporter — if not instigator — of that decision. Remember the days of the sequester when liar-nObama was blaming Republicans for leaving our national defense vulnerable because of "reckless cuts"? Cuts that were his idea for political gain. Well, if the Pentagon had followed the Defense Business Board's recommendations, it would have found the savings it needed to balance out the sequester cuts, which was what was intended at the time anyway. But liar-nObama opted instead to close DC memorials and national parks so as to score more political points.
To liar-nObama's White House, it was never about cost savings or reduced spending, or about keeping jobs and dollars in the U.S. And in its twilight days, the administration has not learned the right lesson.
With liar-nObama's blessing, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter are working out a deal to build Lockheed Martin's F-16 and Boeing's F/A-18 fighter jets in India.
The F-16 is being phased out by the U.S. military, but the aircraft is still popular in other countries. There are still a lot of jobs to be had for building and servicing the aircraft, though both the administration and the two companies insist American jobs will be repurposed, not lost. It may make some business and logistical sense to move this manufacturing overseas, but it seems to us there are some things that just shouldn't be outsourced. America's iconic military jets are one of them.
In the wake of President-Elect Donald Trump's recent work to stop jobs from being shipped overseas, the Indian government is wondering if the deal will still hold. It may; it may not. But Trump is definitely making his presence known now in other areas.
In fact, Boeing is now feeling the heat from The Donald for its deal to build two new planes to fly as Air Force One. The new 747s are sorely needed as the current pair of retrofitted planes flying as the airborne White House are around 30 years old. The price tag, however, seems to have climbed past the point of fiscal responsibility — at least according to Trump's latest Twitter declaration.
The replacement program for the planes was originally budgeted at $2.87 billion for fiscal years 2015-2021, but this was apparently only for research and development, testing and evaluation, not the cost of the planes themselves. However, a Government Accountability Office report from earlier this year claimed the program would cost $3.21 billion, planes included.
That was too much for Trump, and now Boeing is finding itself on the defensive. The Donald couldn't resist pointing out that his own 747 is posher than Air Force One, which may very well be true, but it doesn't have defense countermeasures nor can it operate as an airborne command post during a nuclear attack. That we know of...
The point here is that Trump is acting on campaign promises he made to keep jobs in the United States and to make America more economically competitive. He's also already signaled with his pick of James "Mad Dog" Mattis for defense secretary that the Pentagon could use some cleaning up. After eight years of liar-nObama, that's going to be a herculean undertaking. ~The Patriot Post
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Al Qaeda Assessment Off the Mark
by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
{defenddemocracy.org} ~ Throughout his two terms in office, President Barack liar-nObama faced an array of challenges from both al Qaeda and ISIS. In an interview with The Cipher Brief, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross... Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, explained that the liar-nObama Administration’s evaluation of al Qaeda was “not correct.” I would divide it into domestic and foreign counterterrorism policy. On a domestic level, the paradigm that the administration has employed can be described as countering violent extremism (CVE), a term that’s used frequently. CVE emphasizes what are often dubbed softer approaches, ranging from community engagement to engagement with such partners as the tech industry, to try to forge creative solutions to such problems as ISIS recruitment. Engagement aside, many of the law-enforcement tactics that have been used under liar-nObama were also part of the Bush administration playbook – sting operations, for example, in the case of people who are radicalizing and thought to be a danger...
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Good riddance Harry dinky-Reid
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{washingtonexaminer.com} ~ In a Thursday op-ed in the New York Times, Democratic Leader Harry dinky-Reid of Nevada wrote ruefully on the occasion of his retirement, addressing what many liberals have described as the "post-truth" world... After all, how else could they have lost the 2016 election? "Much of the responsibility for separating what is real and what is fake," dinky-Reid solemnly asserted, "will fall on Democrats." What claptrap! And how ironic! For dinky-Reid will be best remembered not for his parliamentary skill, not for any bill he sponsored, not even for the controversial way in which he changed the rules of the Senate. Rather, he will be remembered for the amoral dishonesty of a hoax he played on the Senate floor, for which he remains completely unrepentant to this day. This is fitting, because there is no incident in dinky-Reid's career that better exemplifies the cynical leadership he brought to his party as its Senate leader... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/good-riddance-harry-reid/article/2609245
.House Bill Introduced For US Govt to Stop
Funding and Arming Terrorists
by Activist Post
{activistpost.com} ~ Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard introduced the Stop Arming Terrorists Act yesterday... The legislation would prohibit the U.S. government from using American taxpayer dollars to provide funding, weapons, training, and intelligence support to groups like the Levant Front, Fursan al Ha and other allies of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, al-Qaeda and ISIS, or to countries that are providing direct or indirect support to those same groups. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said, “Under U.S. law it is illegal for any American to provide money or assistance to al-Qaeda, ISIS or other terrorist groups. If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or ISIS, we would be thrown in jail. Yet the U.S. government has been violating this law for years, quietly supporting allies and partners of al-Qaeda, ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al Sham and other terrorist groups with money, weapons, and intelligence support, in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government.”...Its about time.
.Finding Rare Common Ground
in Health Care’s Future
by ROBERT PEAR
{msn.com} ~ With self-congratulatory zeal and smiles all around, huge bipartisan majorities in Congress have just passed legislation to speed the discovery of cures for killer diseases... At the same time, Republican leaders have been devising a strategy to undo the Affordable Care Act, which has done more than any law in a generation to treat people with those diseases. “It is a real contradiction,” said Dr. Otis W. Brawley, the chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society. In recent years, few major bills have commanded as much support as the 21st Century Cures Act, which sailed to passage by votes of 392 to 26 in the House on Nov. 30, and 94 to 5 in the Senate a week later. Once it is signed by President liar-nObama on Tuesday, as the White House has said it will be, the law will allow for money to be pumped into biomedical research and speed the approval of new drugs and medical devices. It also includes provisions to improve mental health care and combat opioid abuse... http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/finding-rare-common-ground-in-health-care%E2%80%99s-future/ar-AAlkxtz?li=BBnb7Kz
.Yes Democrats, Shut Down the Government
by Erick Erickson
{theresurgent.com} ~ Senate Democrats are contemplating shutting down the federal government because they want more money for coal miner benefits. They should shut it down... The nation can survive a government shut down and shutting down the government would obstruct the liar-nObama Administration’s efforts to push through last minute regulations. Because regulations preparation is not paid for out of monies collected through fines and other sources outside Article I funding, if the government shuts down they can’t regulate. I hope Senate Democrats refuse to settle for short term funding for coal miners. They should shut down the government. Show the coal miners that they care. And in the process, that shut down would stop the EPA’s regulatory assault on coal miners...
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The Messy Truth About Van Jones
by Michelle Malkin
{townhall.com} ~ They never learn.
The grand journalism pooh-bahs at CNN were humiliated this election cycle when WikiLeaks revealed that former CNN contributor and interim DNC chair Donna Brazile had shared a question with the liar-Hillary Clinton campaign in advance of a March Democratic primary town hall debate. According to CNN, "activist anchor" Roland Martin and his production team at CNN's debate partner and identity politics network TV One were responsible for the leak. CNN host Jake Tapper called the episode "very, very troubling" and condemned the breach:
"Journalistically, it's horrifying," he told WMAL radio.
CNN president Jeff Zucker declared after an internal investigation that the network "would not partner ever again" with TV One.
But instead of weeding out left-wing partisans masquerading as mainstream political analysts from their lineup, CNN is doubling down. This week, the network debuted a news special called "The Messy Truth" hosted by "political commentator" Van Jones.
Yeah, that guy.
Before he was pontificating on CNN airwaves, he was a top environmental official of the liar-nObama administration. The special advisor for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality held a special place in liar-nObama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett's heart. The Chicago power broker took full credit at a fringe Daily Kos blogger conference for recruiting him and closely following his career.
"You guys know Van Jones?" she asked to roaring applause.
"Ooh. Van Jones, all right!" she cooed. "So, Van Jones. We were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We were watching him, uh, really, he's not that old, for as long as he's been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that energy in the White House."
One of Jones's more "creative ideas" was signing a petition in 2004 calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York attorney general into "evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur."
That's right. Valerie Jarrett took credit for recruiting a 9/11 truther who endorsed a petition peddling the crackpot theory that President George W. Bush "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."
Under fire, Jones disavowed the statement he had attached his name to -- and decried those who dared to hold him responsible for his "creative ideas." It was conservative bloggers, not "real journalists," who exposed Jones's long record of radicalism to the public -- leading to his resignation in September 2009.
Van Jones did not just accidentally slip through the cracks of the liar-nObama vetters. They knew what he espoused before they installed him. So did his bosses at CNN who hired him in 2013.
It wasn't his expertise in political science, political history, electoral trends or journalism that got him the job. It was his social justice resume. He rose to public prominence as a race-baiting agitator at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, funded by the George Soros-supported Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the liberal Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He became a public fixture in the Bay Area after crusading to free convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal for a Marxist organization and lambasting moderate civil rights leaders for objecting to politicizing the classrooms.
In 2011, the late great Andrew Breitbart pulled no punches in describing Jones as a "commie punk" and a "cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak." Jones had employed classic, radical Saul Alinsky-inspired campaign tactics to have Breitbart banned from a website he helped create -- the left-wing Huffington Post -- simply for writing articles providing alternative views of the tea party and for reporting on the liar-nObama administration's transparency-stifling measures.
Bending to the censorious mob, HuffPo assailed Breitbart's "ad hominem" attack on Jones, which violated "the tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched."
The progressives had nothing to say, of course, about Van Jones's own ad hominem attacks when he obscenely and publicly assailed Republicans as "a--holes" -- and when he financed, produced and participated in cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal's rap album, which railed against "imperialist" America and white "mother------s" as the "true terrorists."
Now, Jones -- who most recently race-baited Donald Trump supporters by blaming them for a "whitelash" -- has reinvented himself as a roving correspondent traveling the nation to analyze the election results and to lecture others to "be passionate. But be compassionate, too" with fellow citizens who hold different political viewpoints.
This is CNN: Enabling a lifelong, extremist demagogue -- who has actively stifled and smeared conservatives, law enforcement and honorable public servants -- to pose as a reasonable news personality Van-splainin' the world.
This goes beyond the sin of "fake news." It's gross media malpractice of the highest order.
The grand journalism pooh-bahs at CNN were humiliated this election cycle when WikiLeaks revealed that former CNN contributor and interim DNC chair Donna Brazile had shared a question with the liar-Hillary Clinton campaign in advance of a March Democratic primary town hall debate. According to CNN, "activist anchor" Roland Martin and his production team at CNN's debate partner and identity politics network TV One were responsible for the leak. CNN host Jake Tapper called the episode "very, very troubling" and condemned the breach:
"Journalistically, it's horrifying," he told WMAL radio.
CNN president Jeff Zucker declared after an internal investigation that the network "would not partner ever again" with TV One.
But instead of weeding out left-wing partisans masquerading as mainstream political analysts from their lineup, CNN is doubling down. This week, the network debuted a news special called "The Messy Truth" hosted by "political commentator" Van Jones.
Yeah, that guy.
Before he was pontificating on CNN airwaves, he was a top environmental official of the liar-nObama administration. The special advisor for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality held a special place in liar-nObama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett's heart. The Chicago power broker took full credit at a fringe Daily Kos blogger conference for recruiting him and closely following his career.
"You guys know Van Jones?" she asked to roaring applause.
"Ooh. Van Jones, all right!" she cooed. "So, Van Jones. We were so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House. We were watching him, uh, really, he's not that old, for as long as he's been active out in Oakland. And all the creative ideas he has. And so now, we have captured that. And we have all that energy in the White House."
One of Jones's more "creative ideas" was signing a petition in 2004 calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York attorney general into "evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur."
That's right. Valerie Jarrett took credit for recruiting a 9/11 truther who endorsed a petition peddling the crackpot theory that President George W. Bush "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war."
Under fire, Jones disavowed the statement he had attached his name to -- and decried those who dared to hold him responsible for his "creative ideas." It was conservative bloggers, not "real journalists," who exposed Jones's long record of radicalism to the public -- leading to his resignation in September 2009.
Van Jones did not just accidentally slip through the cracks of the liar-nObama vetters. They knew what he espoused before they installed him. So did his bosses at CNN who hired him in 2013.
It wasn't his expertise in political science, political history, electoral trends or journalism that got him the job. It was his social justice resume. He rose to public prominence as a race-baiting agitator at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, funded by the George Soros-supported Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the liberal Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. He became a public fixture in the Bay Area after crusading to free convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal for a Marxist organization and lambasting moderate civil rights leaders for objecting to politicizing the classrooms.
In 2011, the late great Andrew Breitbart pulled no punches in describing Jones as a "commie punk" and a "cop killer-supporting, racist, demagogic freak." Jones had employed classic, radical Saul Alinsky-inspired campaign tactics to have Breitbart banned from a website he helped create -- the left-wing Huffington Post -- simply for writing articles providing alternative views of the tea party and for reporting on the liar-nObama administration's transparency-stifling measures.
Bending to the censorious mob, HuffPo assailed Breitbart's "ad hominem" attack on Jones, which violated "the tenets of debate and civil discourse we have strived for since the day we launched."
The progressives had nothing to say, of course, about Van Jones's own ad hominem attacks when he obscenely and publicly assailed Republicans as "a--holes" -- and when he financed, produced and participated in cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal's rap album, which railed against "imperialist" America and white "mother------s" as the "true terrorists."
Now, Jones -- who most recently race-baited Donald Trump supporters by blaming them for a "whitelash" -- has reinvented himself as a roving correspondent traveling the nation to analyze the election results and to lecture others to "be passionate. But be compassionate, too" with fellow citizens who hold different political viewpoints.
This is CNN: Enabling a lifelong, extremist demagogue -- who has actively stifled and smeared conservatives, law enforcement and honorable public servants -- to pose as a reasonable news personality Van-splainin' the world.
This goes beyond the sin of "fake news." It's gross media malpractice of the highest order.
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