Pentagon to destroy $1 billion worth of ammo. This makes sense because…?

(Allen B. West) – Why is the Pentagon to destroy ammunition for our men and women in uniform while the Department of Homeland Security is buying up millions of rounds of ammunition? As we asked last week, why are we decimating our military while many government agencies are arming up?

You really have to wonder why, according to USA Today, “The Pentagon plans to destroy more than $1 billion worth of ammunition although some of those bullets and missiles could still be used by troops, according to the Pentagon and congressional sources. It’s impossible to know what portion of the arsenal slated for destruction — valued at $1.2 billion by the Pentagon — remains viable because the Defense Department’s inventory systems can’t share data effectively, according to a Government Accountability Office report obtained by USA TODAY. The result: potential waste of unknown value.”

Everyone complains about fraud, waste and abuse of American taxpayer dollars, and I will admit there is a degree of that in the Department of Defense (DoD), the Pentagon. I firmly supported — still do –an audit of the DoD when I sat on the House Armed Services Committee. But still, it makes you wonder.

Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., and chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said, “Despite years of effort, the Army, Navy and Air Force still don’t have an efficient process for doing something as basic as sharing excess bullets. This Government Accountability Office (GAO) report clearly shows that our military’s antiquated systems lead to millions of dollars in wasteful ammunition purchases.” The Army and Pentagon, in a statement, acknowledged “the need to automate the process” and will make it a priority in future budgets. In all, the Pentagon manages a stockpile of conventional ammunition worth $70 billion.

Now, this last part is quite perplexing to me, having spent 22 years in the US Army as a combat artillery officer and being quite involved in ammunition management as a Brigade/Regimental operations officer, a Battalion Executive officer, and a Battalion Commander. We constantly received spreadsheets that were reconciled monthly for ammunition allocation and use. In the Army we have Division and Corps level Ammunition Officers whose sole mission is ammunition management, which is forecasted out and allocated yearly.

Excess ammunition? We were begging for excess ammunition for training purposes. And I recall on several occasions when I was an Army exchange officer with the II Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Lejeune working out some issues on ammunition transfer and training between XVIIIth Airborne Corps, Ft. Bragg. So what is this baloney?

Folks, this is why we need more men and women serving on Capitol Hill who have served in uniform and can raise the Bovine Excrement flag. It would also behoove these Members of the House and Senate who are on Armed Services committees to have staffers who are veterans and can provide proper insight and perspective.

However, more importantly, we need former servicemen and women in civilian leadership with oversight of the military who understand the tactical level processes and procedures so that at the higher strategic level, this type of foolishness does not occur. Instead, we have political nepotism and cronyism, as too many are positioned due to their campaign contributions or agenda allegiance, not because of their military experience or expertise.

USA Today says the GAO report illustrates the obsolete nature of the Pentagon’s inventory systems for ammunition. A request for ammunition from the Marine Corps, for example, is e-mailed to the Army. The e-mail is printed out and manually retyped into the Army system because the services cannot share data directly. Not only is this time consuming, but it can introduce errors — by an incorrect keystroke, for example.

Waste, buying new ammunition while usable stockpiles exist, can occur “because the Army does not report information on all available and usable items,” the report states. The annual conference among the services — although it saves about $70 million per year, according to the Pentagon — is inadequate. The services, in fiscal year 2012, exchanged 44 million items, including 32 million bullets for machine guns and pistols. Specifically, the Army’s report does not include information from prior years about usable ammunition that was unclaimed by another service and stored for potential foreign military sales or slated for potential disposal,” the report says.

All of which begs the simple question: who is in charge? Who is tracking ammunition production, allocation, usage, and redistribution? This is why a serious audit system is necessary. If a monthly reconciliation is done at the unit/installation level, there should at least be a quarterly reconciliation at higher levels. If that is being done, then we should have fail-safe systems as well as procedures and methods upgraded to ensure effective and efficient management.

This is unacceptable and I bet you could sell the excess usable 9 mm ammunition at a reduced price to civilian outlets — and make money for the DoD. But then that would mean you’re arming civilians…

[H/T Allen B. West]

Knicks great calls for all-black league amid Clippers race fiasco

(New York Post) – Knicks executive and former player Larry Johnson had a decidedly different but still strong reaction to the racially insensitive remarks Clippers owner Donald Sterling is alleged to have made.

On Saturday night, Johnson tweeted: “Black people your Focusing on the wrong thing. We should be focusing on having our own, Own team own League! To For Self!!’’

The initial indication was Johnson was calling for an all-African-American league complete with black ownership. It wasn’t the first time Johnson, who is black, concerned himself with the fact the NBA’s ownership is mostly white while its players are mostly black.

During the 1999 NBA Finals between the Knicks and Spurs, Johnson caused a stir by saying: “We’ve got a lot of rebellious slaves on this [Knicks] team.”

When asked at the time why he referred to his teammates as slaves, Johnson said: “I’ve got to explain that to you? We don’t go with the mainstream.’’

Johnson was hired by the Knicks two years ago and serves many roles as a basketball and business operations representative. It’s unclear what his role will be under new team president Phil Jackson.

In his first comments on getting fired by the Knicks one week ago, Mike Woodson said it was “a dream come true’’ to coach them and he plans to coach again.

“When I look at my situation, I started as a player, I was drafted by the Knicks 34 years ago,’’ Woodson said as an NBATV guest analyst Sunday. “So, to be able to come back and coach the Knicks, I never dreamed of doing that. It’s like a dream come true. And the last two years, prior to coming into this season, was a good two seasons for our ball club and our fans. And this year things just didn’t work out. Sometimes in life things just don’t work out according to plan, but I look at it, overall, it was a good run.’’

Woodson added it was “a great experience’’ and thanked Knicks owner James Dolan. “Sometimes organizations, they move on, they go in a different direction, and that’s what they decided to do with my situation,’’ Woodson said. “So, I got to move on and close the chapter in this book and get ready for a new chapter because I still want to coach and love what I do.”

[H/T NewYorkPost: Marc Berman]

Find Out How This Law Could Make Praising Obama Mandatory In Schools

Soon your children might not have a choice…

(Western Journalism) – Common Core educational standards already mandate that leftist propaganda be included in virtually any public school lesson taught. Such activism is apparently not enough for Democrat California Assemblyman Chris Holden, though.

A recent bill he sponsored – which passed the Assembly and is now headed for the state Senate – would force high school history teachers to lavish additional praise on Barack Obama due to the supposed racial significance of his election.

The fact that millions of Americans voted for a half-white candidate, he maintains, “should not be a mere footnote within textbooks,” concluding teachers should “focus on the significance of Americans overcoming our nation’s past and acknowledging that Americans are moving in the right direction.”

In one respect, some conservatives might see this as a promising development. At least Holden admits Americans are by and large not a racist people – something race-obsessed activists like Al Sharpton would never concede. On the other hand, however, the bill would require that special attention be paid to Obama strictly based on his skin color, which in itself strikes many as a racial prejudice.

According to his bill, the 2008 election represented a “historic step in the effort towards equality in the United States,” alleging many of the nation’s prior elections were marred by threats of violence against black voters.

That election, however, turned the tables completely as Black Panthers reportedly used the same tactic against whites.

The bill would also tout Obama’s involvement in the Chicago political machine during his time as a community organizer.

While a local CBS affiliate reported the details of the bill, the online comments section offered a glimpse into the public’s reaction.

“You have to ask WHY would a state legislature pass a LAW mandating the teaching about someone’s race rather than their conduct?” one commenter asked. “I teach my kids that race is irrelevant when judging someone. Isn’t the CA legislature being racist? Who are they pandering to now for votes??”

Another poster predicted “the significance of Obama’s presidency is that the last black man has been elected president.”

Several suggested that a lesson in his dangerous ideology would be more appropriate than a study of his melanin content. Others pointed out that focusing on a politician’s race is the opposite of embracing a color-blind society.

“If we, as a nation, were truly progressing beyond racism then, the race of a person would be the most insignificant aspect of any individual no matter what societal position that person experiences,” one commenter wrote. “It would not even rise to the significance of a mere footnote within textbooks.”

[H/T WesternJournalism: B. Christopher Agee]

Report: Toyota Says ‘Later’ To California, ‘Howdy’ To Texas

(The Daily Caller) – The Japanese car maker Toyota Motor Corp. will shift most of its U.S. headquarters from California to Texas, according to several sources cited by Reuters and Bloomberg.

The move will occur over several years and affect several thousand of Toyota’s 5,300 sales and marketing employees in Torrance, Cal.

A location in Plano, Tex. is being eyed for the new facility, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Toyota sells 2.2 million vehicles a year in the U.S. and has manufacturing facilities in Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, Alabama and Indiana. The company opened its first facility in California in 1957 and its Torrance headquarters in 1982.

The move, expected to be announced Monday, could be the fruit of a campaign led by Texas Gov. Rick Perry who has sought to poach businesses from the Golden State.

Perry, who is serving his last term as governor but has eyes on a 2016 presidential bid, has traveled to California numerous times to tout the Lone Star State’s business-friendly climate.

“Building a business is tough,” said Perry in a television ad released last year, “but I hear building a business in California is next to impossible.”

In both 2012 and 2013, Texas was ranked the best state for business in a survey conducted by Chief Executive. California was ranked 50th.

[H/T TheDailyCaller: Chuck Ross]

 

‘No help coming’: State preps citizens for EMP attack

(WND) – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed legislation to require the state’s Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to prepare materials outlining what citizens need to know to deal with either a natural or man-made electromagnetic pulse event that could knock out the vulnerable electrical grid system over a wide geographical region.

The legislation, SB 1476, was introduced by Sen. David Farnsworth, R-Mesa. It includes the type and quantity of food, water and medical supplies that each person should stockpile in case an EMP occurs over the U.S.

The legislation, however, doesn’t require actual hardening of the grid within the state.

“In our lifetimes the emergencies we’ve seen have been local emergencies, and really all we have to do is be prepared enough to hang on until help arrives,” Farnsworth said at the time he introduced it last February. “With an EMP, there’s no help coming.”

Under the legislation that now is law, the Arizona Division of Emergency Management is to post on its website recommendations such as the type and amount of supplies residents should stockpile to be prepared for an EMP event.

Farnsworth’s more immediate concern was the prospect of an EMP triggered by the detonation of a high-altitude nuclear weapon. The EMP would have the effect of knocking out the vulnerable grid system and any unprotected electronics.

“My hope is that by bringing this out, we’ll start discussions and come to the realization that as a government we can’t feed all these people, but as responsible citizens we need to do our part and make individual preparations,” he said at the time he introduced the legislation.

A co-sponsor of the legislation, Don Shooter, R-Yuma, had criticized the federal government for not taking a similar public education program.

Read the documentation that’s sparking the worry about the EMP threat, in “A Nation Forsaken.”

“It’s too expensive for the government to prepare on a national scale,” Shooter said. “This time around, it’s people who can do the most to prepare. It’s even possible to EMP-proof your electronics. It just takes time.”

Shooter said the threat of an EMP event may be small, but “if it ever does happen, most people won’t be prepared. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and warn them now. God puts a watchman on the tower for times like these.”

State Rep. Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, was one of 17 lawmakers who voted against the original legislation, criticizing the focus on a catastrophe that he said was a very remote possibility.

“Really, we already have a major catastrophe in the state and that’s called our schools falling apart, our roads falling apart and we should be fixing those things,” he said. “Not living in some fantasy world worrying about some unquantified attack or some disaster that’s not gonna happen.”

Survival gear expert Tim Ralston of Scottsdale, Ariz., however, said that there are simple things that can be done to give people “peace of mind.”

“The food, the water, everything has to do with electricity. And an EMP in an instant would shut that all off,” he said.

Ralston said that less than 15 percent of the Arizona population is prepared for an electrical disruption of 30 days or more.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Ralston said of the new law. “I think any time we can take a proactive step to help people become more self-reliant it will help that transition.”

Arizona has taken a lead in moving on the EMP issue.

In February 2013, Congressman Trent Franks introduced the SHIELD Act in the House of Representatives and established in the U.S. House of Representatives the EMP Caucus.

The Shield Act stands for Secure High-voltage Infrastructure for Electricity from Lethal Damage. It calls on industry and government to develop, promulgate and implement standards and processes that are necessary to address the electric grid’s current vulnerabilities and shortcomings that would be affected by an EMP.

Franks has been trying to get the SHIELD Act into law since 2011. In the last session of Congress, it passed the House but failed in the Senate. His efforts stem from findings of the congressional EMP commission which spelled out in considerable detail the cascading impact of an EMP on the electrical grid system and its catastrophic impact on life-sustaining critical infrastructures that depend on it.

Experts agree that if there were an EMP event, the U.S. could see some 90 percent of its population affected. Experts believe food, water, energy and other supply systems could be inoperational, possibly for periods extending to years.

Arizona is but the latest state to take action due to the failure of the federal government to address the EMP issue. Last June, Maine passed and the governor signed legislation ordering its grid to be hardened against an EMP.

The law not only requires preparation against a natural or man-made EMP, but it encourages other states to take a similar initiative.

Other states, including New York, Texas, North Carolina and Missouri, also are considering EMP legislation.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has failed to look at EMP as a major threat in its 15 planning scenarios, even though DHS officials have testified before Congress that they are very aware of the consequences of an EMP event, whether natural or man-made.

[H/T WND: F. Michael Maloof]

Wisconsin Sheriff David Clarke kicks some liberal butt at NRA convention

(Allen B. West) – Wisconsin Sheriff David Clarke will surely have a target on his back now after his superb comments at the annual NRA convention in Indianapolis. As reported by The Blaze, Clarke revealed the seven words he would add to the Second Amendment: “Keep your hands off our guns, dammit.” What Sheriff Clarke again demonstrates is for conservatives it’s nothing to do with race — it’s all about individual character.

His comments about amending the Constitution were aimed at former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who said in his recent book that he would change the Second Amendment by adding five words in the middle: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed.”

“My reaction was, ‘What!’” Clarke said, adding, ”Just what part of ‘shall not be infringed’ does Justice Stevens not understand?” That comment drew another standing ovation. But he wasn’t done there, going on to say he was sick of the Second Amendment being the ”bastard child of the Bill of Rights.” “The armed citizen made America free and the armed citizen will keep America free!” Clarke said, also calling the armed citizen the “great equalizer” and giving examples of three such instances in his area. “Those firearms in the hands of law-abiding citizens saved people’s lives,” he added, declaring he “damn well meant it” when he took his oath to defend the Constitution.

I always say that an armed person is a citizen, and an unarmed one is a subject — I believe Sheriff Clarke would agree.

I first met Sheriff David Clarke Jr. in 2011 when we held our Black Conservative Forum in the House Small Business committee room. I knew then this was a leader. A man of resolve and principle who is unwavering in his commitment to upholding the rule of law and justice — in other words the complete opposite of Attorney General Eric Holder.

What Sheriff Clarke obviously now understands is that he’s a target for the liberal progressive racist Left. However, I don’t think he’ll be losing sleep over folks like “pajama boy” calling him names. Just look at the image he cast as he stood at that podium — an image that would make Vladimir Putin pay attention. What Sheriff David displays is that which needs to be restored, not just in the black community, but across America: strength and might, combined with resilient competence, commitment, and conviction.

Sheriff Clarke has indeed earned a target, and it is a target he will undoubtedly wear with pride and honor. Slowly but surely there is a growing number of Spartans stepping forward in America — color and gender not of concern — their patriotic warrior heart is all that matters.

And so Sheriff David Clarke Jr. took the stage and like a true man of Sparta told the gun control liberal Left, Molon Labe!

[H/T AllenBWest]

 

Have Bad Vision? This ‘Incredible’ & Simple Trick Allows You to See Clearly Without Glasses

(The Blaze) – A new video posted on a popular YouTube channel Sunday provides individuals with bad vision a simple trick allowing them to see clearly without glasses.

According to Minute Physics, those with poor vision can sharpen their eyesight by simply creating a tiny hole with their fingers and looking through it.

Individuals who watched the video and gave the trick a try were in awe.

“I am very nearsighted, and I could read the text on my book across the room. Incredible!” one user commented on YouTube.

“I am very nearsighted, and I could read the text on my book across the room. Incredible!”

Share:

“It works! That’s incredible! I’m actually stunned right now, this is great!” echoed another.

[H/T TheBlaze: Oliver Darcy]