Pentagon bloat, etc. thread

[Vrede too]

Article

... "The Biden White House issued an edict in spring 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review," Reuters found....

Even if one discounts Snowden's opinion, the Reuters' revelation is shocking and obscene.

[Vrede too]

USAF - Ever vigilant in defending male White supremacy:

More DEI fallout: Air Force scraps course that used videos of Tuskegee Airmen and female WWII pilots

[Vrede too]

White male supremacy marches on:

Trump fires chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two other military officers

President Donald Trump abruptly fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday, sidelining a history-making fighter pilot and respected officer as part of a campaign led by his defense secretary to rid the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.

The ouster of Brown, only the second Black general to serve as chairman, is sure to send shock waves through the Pentagon....

Trump said he's nominating retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to be the next chairman.

White, of course.

... However, he has not had key assignments identified in law as prerequisites for the job, including serving as either the vice chairman, a combatant commander or a service chief....

Legally unqualified, irony.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,

White male.

in a statement praising both Caine and Brown, announced the firings of two additional senior officers: Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. Jim Slife.

Franchetti becomes the second top female military officer to be fired by the Trump administration. Trump fired Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan just a day after he was sworn in.

A surface warfare officer, Franchetti has commanded at all levels, heading U.S. 6th Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Korea. She was the second woman ever to be promoted to four-star admiral, and she did multiple deployments, including as commander of a naval destroyer and two stints as aircraft carrier strike group commander.

Slife led Air Force Special Operations Command prior to becoming the service's vice chief of staff and had deployed to the Middle East and Afghanistan....

White male. Somebody had to be the token, thank you for your service.

... It had been 30 years since Colin Powell became the first Black chairman, serving from 1989 to 1993. But while African Americans made up 17.2% of the 1.3 million active-duty service members, only 9% of officers were Black, according to a 2021 Defense Department report.

Brown’s service as chairman made history in that this was the first time that both the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, and the Joint Chiefs chairman were Black.

That won't fly in the DonOLD admin*. It's now the reign of unqualified White male supremacy MAGAts.

[O Really]

So where was the "waste and efficiency" goons when they decided to change the names of military bases back? As it turns out, somebody - and it might have been me - suggested back when they were originally changing them that it would be better to keep the name and change the honoree. Nobody thought it was anything that would really happen. Now they've done it, but after spending literally millions with the changes.

[Vrede too]

So where was the "waste and efficiency" goons when they decided to change the names of military bases back? As it turns out, somebody - and it might have been me - suggested back when they were originally changing them that it would be better to keep the name and change the honoree. Nobody thought it was anything that would really happen. Now they've done it, but after spending literally millions with the changes.

I know about Ft Bragg, are there others?

[O Really]

So where was the "waste and efficiency" goons when they decided to change the names of military bases back? As it turns out, somebody - and it might have been me - suggested back when they were originally changing them that it would be better to keep the name and change the honoree. Nobody thought it was anything that would really happen. Now they've done it, but after spending literally millions with the changes.

I know about Ft Bragg, are there others?

Benning.
I think I said when they were originally changing that they should keep the names of Bragg and Benning especially, because they have such a storied history and tradition. I doubted most people really knew or cared who they were named after. But finding another "Bragg" or "Benning" to honor was or would have been a good idea. Now it's just another useless swat at "DEI" or "woke" or something.

[Vrede too]

I know about Ft Bragg, are there others?

Benning.
I think I said when they were originally changing that they should keep the names of Bragg and Benning especially, because they have such a storied history and tradition. I doubted most people really knew or cared who they were named after. But finding another "Bragg" or "Benning" to honor was or would have been a good idea. Now it's just another useless swat at "DEI" or "woke" or something.

Found it:
viewtopic.php?p=171171#p171171

I don't think stuff should be named after traitors or heroes of other real or pretend countries, but I gotta say I've got mixed feelings on some of these. For at least 3 of them - Benning, Bragg, and Rucker - the fame, legend, and traditions have far exceeded those of the person they were named for. And probably most people, including those who served on those bases don't know or care who the original people were.

Surely there must be somebody else with those names and we could say, for example, that Fort Rucker was named for Col. Ambrose Rucker, " A Patriot of the American Revolution for VIRGINIA with the rank of LIEUTENANT COLONEL. Colonel Ambrose was 6 feet 6 inches in height and weighed 300 pounds. He was a pioneer in Virginia who left a legacy to his Family and descendants and blazed a path in the History of the USA.

The renaming is essentially a done deal, but I would have been okay with Fort Annette Benning.

Did she do any war movies?

[O Really]

So I guess there hasn't been an effort to change the name of Fort Bragg, CA, even though it has the same name as the Confederate loser.

Fort Bragg (town in California) was founded in 1857 prior to the American Civil War as a military garrison rather than a fortification.[13] It was named after army officer Braxton Bragg, who at the time had served the U.S. in the Mexican–American War (and would later serve in the Confederate Army during the Civil War).

The North Carolina base was originally named in 1918 for Gen. Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general from Warrenton, North Carolina, who was known for owning slaves and losing key Civil War battles that contributed to the Confederacy's downfall.

So California names theirs for an adequate US officer; North Carolina names theirs well after he has been shown to be a losing scum bag.

[neoplacebo]

So I guess there hasn't been an effort to change the name of Fort Bragg, CA, even though it has the same name as the Confederate loser.

Fort Bragg (town in California) was founded in 1857 prior to the American Civil War as a military garrison rather than a fortification.[13] It was named after army officer Braxton Bragg, who at the time had served the U.S. in the Mexican–American War (and would later serve in the Confederate Army during the Civil War).

The North Carolina base was originally named in 1918 for Gen. Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general from Warrenton, North Carolina, who was known for owning slaves and losing key Civil War battles that contributed to the Confederacy's downfall.

So California names theirs for an adequate US officer; North Carolina names theirs well after he has been shown to be a losing scum bag.

The late teens and early twenties of the last century were the vanguard of the resurrection of the KKK, especially in the south. That's when most of those statues of Confederate soldiers and generals were erected. I think it all had connections to the 50th anniversary of them losing a war. they wanted to celebrate and honor it. Sort of how current Republicans are trying to celebrate and honor the Jan 6th insurrection. I've been reading about the House committee headed by Loudermilk (a real certified nutjob from GA) and how it's focus is on the FBI as the cause instead of trump and magats being the cause. Pathetic

[Vrede too]

The late teens and early twenties of the last century were the vanguard of the resurrection of the KKK, especially in the south. That's when most of those statues of Confederate soldiers and generals were erected. I think it all had connections to the 50th anniversary of them losing a war. they wanted to celebrate and honor it. Sort of how current Republicans are trying to celebrate and honor the Jan 6th insurrection. I've been reading about the House committee headed by Loudermilk (a real certified nutjob from GA) and how it's focus is on the FBI as the cause instead of trump and magats being the cause. Pathetic

Excellent metaphor. Traitors all, including the Dems who supported the KKK statues and the RepuQs who supported J6.

Speaking of traitors:

Retired four-star US admiral convicted on corruption charges

... Robert Burke ordered staff to award a $355,000 contract to a company, and then began working there at a $500,000-a-year job after his 2022 retirement from the Navy, the US Department of Justice said.

He also unsuccessfully attempted to convince a top officer to give the firm a separate contract.

A jury found him guilty of offenses including bribery, performing acts affecting a personal financial interest, and concealment of material facts, court records show.

Sentencing is set for August, the same month that two co-CEOs of technology services firm Next Jump are to go on trial in a related case, the Washington Post reported.

Monday's verdict makes Burke the senior-most officer to be convicted in recent times for crimes committed while serving in the US military.

Burke was arrested by Joltin' Joe's DoJ and the prosecution was completed by PINO and AG Bondage. Glad there's something to agree on.

... The Navy has faced other corruption problems in recent years, with the most notorious scandal involving Leonard Francis -- known as "Fat Leonard" -- who handed out more than $500,000 in cash bribes and provided prostitutes, first-class travel, luxury hotel stays and lavish meals to naval officers.

Francis was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November 2024, after fleeing house arrest and traveling to Venezuela before being returned in a prisoner swap the previous year.

As part of a plea agreement, Francis provided government investigators with detailed information that led to the conviction of a number of high-ranking US Navy officers.

Lock them ALL up!

Hey DOGE, are you paying attention?

[Vrede too]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-t ... 8c5737d4d1

Donald Trump on Wednesday raised eyebrows with a controversial suggestion to rename the secretary of defense position as secretary of war, a U.S. government title that hasn’t existed since the late 1940s.

Speaking at a NATO meeting in The Netherlands, Trump introduced Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former Fox News personality-turned-Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by saying:

“Secretary of state and secretary of war. Shall we say secretary… It used to be called secretary of war. Maybe for a couple of weeks we’ll call it that because we feel like warriors.”

He continued:

“It used to be called secretary of war, in fact if you look at the old building next to the White House, you can see where it used to be secretary of war. Then we became politically correct and they called it secretary of defense. I don’t know, maybe we’ll have to start thinking about changing it but we feel that way.”

Hang on to your hats, folks, I agree with Trump. Prior to WW2 what we called the War Department was largely a Department of Defense. We were isolationist prior to WW1, then largely disarmed and reverted to isolationism after WW1 until WW2. In 1947 it became the Department of Defense. This was more false advertising than political correctness, though.

Since WW2 the US has:
Bombed more countries than all other nations combined;
Intervened in many scores of countries;
Invaded a bunch of nations;
Conducted 3 decades-long wars - Korea (technically still a war), Vietnam and the "Global War on Terror";
Annually spent more on the military than all potential enemies combined;
Built and maintained to this day a nuclear arsenal capable of annihilating humanity.

'War Department' would be much more accurate. HuffPo and the social media it quotes don't agree. They rake Trump over the coals as usual. Reflex?

[O Really]

I'd agree "Secretary of War" is more honest and accurate. I just hate that it's appropriate.