Manchin and Tea Party Agree: AUDIT THE PENTAGON!

When it comes to talking about Big Government by the republican establishment "defense spending" and the Pentagon have largely gotten a pass.  Neither have the democrats been bold enough to take any serious action despite the enormous and blatant overspending and fiscal mismanagement of one of the largest budget eaters of U.S. taxpayers.   The Pentagon has not passed an audit in over 20 years!  Finally, someone is doing something about it and in a non-partisan fashion.

Think there is any extravagance or waste in this government spending?

Listen to former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld himself and other former Pentagon officials below.

So the first week of August 2012 Senators Coburn (R-OK) and Manchin (D-WV) introduced the AUDIT THE PENTAGON ACT on the Senate floor.  The Gazette had a good article about it.  Here is a snip from the WashingtonExaminer.com:

Why we must audit the Pentagon--Senator Tom Coburn

   "Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and I recently introduced the Audit the Pentagon Act (S. 3487), which creates new incentives and enforcement mechanisms to force the Pentagon to pass an audit. Joining as us original co-sponsors were Sens. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Rand Paul, R-Ky., Ron Johnson, R-Wis., John Cornyn, R-Texas, Scott Brown R-Mass., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

Auditing the Pentagon is critically important not just because it is the law but also because our ignorance of how we spend defense dollars undermines our national security. When the Pentagon can't tell Congress -- or itself -- how it is spending money, high-priority defense programs face cuts along with low-priority programs...

So this is a bipartisan bill and an issue that constitutional conservatives and the Tea Party movement has been pushing for to drastically reduce the size and scope of Big Government.  The republican establishment traditionally avoids this as politically incorrect and unpatriotic, as if the Pentagon can do no wrong. 

Senator Rand Paul has said he plans to bring this to attention of the GOP Convention Tuesday night during his prime time address.  He says it's time to push AUDIT THE PENTAGON as much as AUDIT THE FED has had attention previously, per this Yahoo news article:

"Because we've talked about audit the Fed so much, we're now talking about audit the Pentagon," Paul told the crowd.  

 "...And one of the messages that I will give to them is that Republicans need to acknowledge that not every dollar is well spent or sacred in the military and we have to look for ways to make every department accountable."

This is great, especially because it's bipartisan!  Big Government must be held accountable and its abuses exposed in order for it to be appropriately and proportionally dismantled and reduced to its Constitutional and simple Federal form, instead of giving it free reign to roam at will and constantly feeding this giant Behemoth of Central government whatever it demands which makes it almost impossible to tame.

Sen. Rand Paul will speak at the convention between 7 and 8 p.m. ET Tuesday, according to an updated schedule made public Sunday.   You can watch it LIVE on the web through C-SPAN here.

Tell your Congressmen to support the bipartisan AUDIT THE PENTAGON ACT immediately.  And let's see how Rand Paul addresses this (as he has before in the Senate) at the GOP Convention. 

See also:  Rand Paul addresses Senate on Fiscal Crisis, "Out of Control" Spending, Balanced Budget

More 'Economic Sanctions' or War With Iran? Sen. Rand Paul Calls Out Congress

What's driving up gas prices, everyone asks?  The very real 'fear premium' (a fear of potentially restricted supply due to regional tensions) on oil that investors/speculators include in trading in the oil market.  It is therefore impossible to divorce Foreign Policy from America's Economy and National Debt.  (This was acknowledged briefly by the oil expert interviewed last week by Hoppy Kercheval on Talkline).  Yet seldom do politicians, or talk radio hosts, address such things together.

More economic sanctions on Iran is a clever way of walking (by the lobbyists' manipulation) the U.S. toward war and drives up the 'fear premium' about supply in the oil trading markets.  Limited Government (Tea Party) type people like Sen. Rand Paul understand how aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East not only endangers a casual, unconstitutional attitude toward war (particularly undeclared wars by the Executive Branch, by both Bush and Obama) but also has economic consequences for all Americans. In other words, there will and is already economic "blow-back" on Americans of economic sanctions on Iran!  Ironic, isn't it?

Remember, it was sanctions on Iraq that began that war.  Sanctions are economic warfare and an economic precursor to it.  AIPAC (the Israeli lobby, the most powerful in Washington) as well as Israeli PM Netanyahu, and a lot of false religious propaganda (i.e. Christian Zionism theology, prophecy) used to support the secular (not Biblical) state of Israel, is pushing American foreign policy with Iran.  The majority of Americans by far now know that Iraq was (at least) a "mistake" and want us out of Afghanistan now and out of the "nation building" (read "regime change") business altogether.  Yet under Obama we have proceeded, without Congressional approval or declarations of war, to use military campaigns in Libya for regime change while Syria and Iran are now entering the cross-hairs (and have been since the neoconservatives in the Bush administration used 9/11 as their pretense).

Tell Senators Rockefeller and Manchin, as well as Reps. Capito, Rahall, and McKinley to listen to you instead of AIPAC.  Economic sanctions on Iran are directly, already, increasing our gas prices and the price of all consumer goods will soon follow by consequence.  After all, do AIPAC and Israel care about the U.S. economic consequences of higher oil and gas prices from increased Middle East tension and wars?  No, not one bit.  And the elite in Washington that vote for sanctions do not feel the economic consequences like you and I do.  So make Congress listen to you instead.  Or, do nothing but don't complain about high gas prices or when groceries and consumer goods go up again as they did already during the Iraq campaign. When will everyone wake up to this!  Why not tell them what you think now instead of complaining about even higher gas and grocery prices later?

Listen to Sen. Rand Paul's objection on the floor (video below) and read about his reasonably offered amendment to the Sanctions bill which was intended to be a wake up call to Congress to think about the careless path they are being pushed into and complying too readily with.  What an excellent and persuasive speech!

War With Iran? Sen. Rand Paul Calls the Question

Senator Rand Paul Teaches PATRIOT ACT 101 to Congress, and Americans

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.     

--Benjamin Franklin

The controversy over the USA PATRIOT ACT is not about whether to stop terrorists.  It is about how much power, arbitrary and unregulated power, the Government should have, and the legal limits the Constitution places on the government as the supreme law of the land in the 4th amendment.  Senator Paul makes the argument that Americans ought to be as free in the hunt for terrorists as we are (or should be) in the hunt for criminals, where the 4th amendment regularly restrains with mostly understanding approval from the public.  It is really not "terrorists" that are being put under surveillance, being screened, searched, and even seized at airports, and having their personal information data-mined on an ongoing basis by the Leviathan called the Dept. of Homeland Security as well as local and state governments since Sept. 11th.  It is "free Americans" in their daily lives.  Ironic, is it not?

So it's about time that someone taught a lesson on the PATRIOT ACT, and on the occasion of its coming up for renewal Senator Paul took it up.  It is not just the Congress that is ignorant on just how bad the so-called USA PATRIOT ACT is.  It is the ignorant, easily manipulated, flag-waving electorate that sent them there.  It's time for a hard look at this dangerous legislation to dispel the inexcusable ignorance that is leading to the killing of our freedoms while claiming to "defend" them from terrorists.  Senator Paul's arguments in this are clear and convincing.  Unless you believe that the U.S. government should have unlimited totalitarian powers, contrary to the Constitution, you should reconsider your view about the PATRIOT ACT and just how "necessary" it is, and what its ramifications are to freedom in America.  This is not a partisan issue.  It is a Constitutional and 4th amendment issue.  This is also why the late Senator Byrd changed his votes and withdrew his support on it, whenever provisional renewals came up. 

But since Congress stupidly voted to extend it, everything said will explain the freedom from government intrusion (and identity thieves) that you lost with that vote, under phony pretense of its patriotic sir-name!  Americans are foolishly encaging themselves to a rogue government that has grabbed the most unprecedented powers for itself, since the one we opposed in 1776, which Senator Paul alludes to also.  (Well, on second thought, the greatest power seized since Lincoln in 1861, which most Americans today are just as ignorant of, and ignorance is not bliss).