THE SET-UP: A Fox News Frat Bro is currently the Secretary of Defense. If that sounds like an exaggeration, take a look at this classic performance by Pete Hegseth. Thanks to the reputation-cleansing power of Jesus, though, he has supposedly become a new man. Now that he’s walking with Christ, Pete is laser-focused on warfighting lethality. As he said on his first day at the Pentagon: "Our job is lethality and readiness and warfighting.”
Pete’s all about “lethality.”
During his embarrassing confirmation hearings, “lethality” and “Jesus” were the words he used most as he ducked and covered his ass. His commitment to maximum lethality “explained” his criticism of women in combat … and it now doubles as his excuse for firing generals, for booting transgender soldiers and for purging DEI. And when he was confronted with his obvious lies of omission about his sordid, well-documented past, he covered himself in the Shroud of Turin.
Now he’s running the Pentagon … and his mouth. Fresh off his fiasco in Munich, Pete’s writing belligerent checks I don’t think most Americans are willing to cash with their blood and treasure. It happened during his first call with “Mexico’s top military officials” and, according to The Wall Street Journal, Pete’s Christianity really came through:
Hegseth told the officials that if Mexico didn’t deal with the collusion between the country’s government and drug cartels, the U.S. military was prepared to take unilateral action, according to people briefed on the Jan. 31 call. Mexico’s top brass who were on that call were shocked and angered, feeling he was suggesting U.S. military action inside Mexico, these people said. The Defense Department declined to comment.
Yeah … there’s Pete … walking in those footprints in the sand … hot on the trail of the Prince Of Peace.
Meanwhile, Pete’s peddling lies about cutting defense spending because of course he is … and guess who stands to benefit from the reallocation of funds DOGE will liberate from existing programs?
Do I even need to say it?
-jp
TITLE: The Myth of Pentagon Budget Cuts
https://inthesetimes.com/article/trump-hegseth-pentagon-budget-cuts-myth
EXCERPT: It’s a striking headline. “Trump administration orders Pentagon to plan for sweeping budget cuts,” reports the Washington Post. “Hegseth orders major Pentagon spending cuts,” says Politico. Such news is remarkable because, while reducing the Pentagon’s budget is popular with the public, it’s largely considered profane in Washington.
There’s just one problem: It didn’t happen. Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth never ordered any cuts; rather, his order was merely to shift funding from some military programs into others. That’s reshuffling the Pentagon budget, not cutting it.
If Trump is a threat to the military-industrial complex, no one bothered to tell the military-industrial complex.
One only has to look at Hegseth’s own words to confirm this. In a statement on February 20, he said the Pentagon would rely on DOGE to “find fraud, waste and abuse in the largest discretionary budget in the federal government.” But then, he added, such cutting “allows us to reinvest elsewhere.” The supposed 8% of cuts will come from “nonlethal programs” and that money will instead go toward “America First” priorities of Trump. These include an alarming military buildup at the border with Mexico, an absurd “Iron Dome” project, and accelerated militarization of the Indo-Pacific region.
As media outlets run sensational articles about DOGE’s non-cuts to the military, Congress is actually advancing real increases to military spending. Trump has endorsed a Republican budget resolution, which passed the House this week, that includes an extra $100 billion more in the Pentagon’s budget. The resolution would impose deep cuts across agriculture, education, energy, health, infrastructure, transportation and more, including to vital social welfare programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps), upon which tens of millions of people rely. Generally speaking, if it’s not related to military or border security, it’s likely on the chopping block.
One telling indicator is that military industry investors are confident. The S&P Aerospace & Defense Select Industry Index, an index which represents the arms industry, is up 4.1% since Trump’s election and a whopping 21.18% since February of last year. And some leading military industry executives are publicly praising Elon Musk and DOGE for their deregulation and industry friendliness. In other words, if Trump is a threat to the military-industrial complex, no one bothered to tell the military-industrial complex.
TITLE: Military-Tech Startups Vie for Billions as Hegseth Shakes Up Pentagon Spending
https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/defense-spending-contractors-hegseth-startups-3c510191
EXCERPTS: Silicon Valley-linked defense companies are seizing on their newfound influence in the Trump administration to address the Pentagon’s shifting focus, pitching their services in fields ranging from autonomous drones to a newly named “Golden Dome” missile-defense shield.
Newer contractors like Anduril Industries, Palantir Technologies and Epirus are lobbying for new contracts and working to convince Pentagon officials that their technology will better equip the military. Many see the Pentagon’s pivot toward new missions as a key chance to win a bigger share of its budget, though their success is far from assured.
In one case, Pentagon officials are reviewing an outside proposal to build a defense system using technology from Anduril, Palantir and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, according to people familiar with the matter. The plan is a response to President Trump’s January executive order to develop a next-generation missile-defense shield that the administration called the Iron Dome for America, an effort since renamed the “Golden Dome.”
The defense-tech sector’s missile-defense pitch is one of a few options the Defense Department could pursue to meet the president’s requirements, which include a satellite network and space-based interceptors. The executive order requires the Pentagon to submit an implementation plan for the missile shield by late March.
Other companies see opportunities after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the department to look for ways to save 8% each year for five years and give priority to programs such as the Collaborative Combat Aircraft, which includes drones from Anduril. Hegseth also wants to ensure the department still spends money on attack drones, autonomous systems and drone-defense technology—tech development that is often coming from startups—according to a memo viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Hegseth’s memo signaled the department’s new funding priorities are moving away from some bigger weapons programs and the traditional contractors that serve them.
Redirecting some of those resources toward new programs could boost midsize defense-tech companies Anduril and Palantir, and offer younger startups a toehold inside the Pentagon. Silicon Valley has long hoped for this opportunity. Despite years of promises from the department that it will buy more startup technology, venture-backed companies still receive only about 1% of Defense Department awards, according to data from software firm Govini.
The tech industry and its private-capital backers have greater access to Pentagon officials than in prior administrations. Department officials have met with venture capitalists including Joe Lonsdale, who has funded and helped to start some of the largest industry players, to discuss military-spending priorities. Trae Stephens, a partner with Peter Thiel’s venture firm Founders Fund who helped launch Anduril, has consulted with the Trump administration on reshaping military priorities, and was considered for a top Pentagon role.
Defense-tech companies have jockeyed to better position themselves for the possibility of lucrative awards by forming technology-sharing partnerships that would allow them to share the proceeds of bigger contracts from the new administration. Anduril and Palantir, for instance, announced a consortium in December to sell their artificial-intelligence technology to the U.S. government.
TITLE: Hey Elon: We Found a Place to Cut More Than $2 Trillion in Wasteful Spending
https://theintercept.com/2025/02/28/musk-doge-pentagon-military-spending-f35/
EXCERPT: On DOGE’s “Agency Efficiency Leaderboard,” which shows some of the largest “savings” it has claimed to achieve, the Defense Department is currently wallowing in 16th place out of a total of 22 spots. It’s an especially dismal showing since Defense is the largest government agency, with a budget rocketing toward $1 trillion per year, and has failed seven straight annual audits. The U.S. military budget is the largest in the world — more than triple that of China, 8.5 times higher than Russia, and exceeds the next nine countries combined. Military expenditures are the largest component of discretionary spending in the U.S. budget and are projected to rise over the next decade.
If agencies devoted to saving lives — such as the Department of Health and Human Services or USAID — are on the chopping block, a department that has spent some $8 trillion on foreign wars since 9/11 deserves a close look by DOGE. Potential cuts aren’t hard to find: The Intercept easily sketched a road map amounting to more than $75 billion in annual savings for Musk and DOGE — and as much as $2 trillion over the next decade.
Major savings at the Pentagon can be found through the reduction or elimination of dysfunctional, expensive, or dangerous weapon systems like the F-35 combat aircraft; vulnerable Navy ships with limited utility like a new generation of aircraft carriers; and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program, according to William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft who has been digging into Pentagon budgets for decades.
The F-35 combat aircraft is a bloated boondoggle, and it’s already on Musk’s radar. More than two decades in, the F-35 is still suffering from key flaws in its software and hardware — a total of 873 unresolved defects, according to one Pentagon analysis. If it’s allowed to run its course, the F-35 will be the most expensive weapons program in history, at a total cost of $1.7 trillion. Musk has called it “the worst military value for money in history.” It’s perfect for a splash cut to save big money and put the Pentagon on notice that the days of milk and honey are done. Nixing the program now would save an estimated $13 billion a year, according to Hartung.
Aircraft carriers are another cakewalk cut. New models have been plagued by defects, such as aircraft launch systems. The ships themselves are also especially vulnerable to new high-speed, long-range missiles. Continuing to build them courts catastrophic losses in a future great power conflict.
Each new aircraft carrier scuttled would save at least $13 billion, Hartung said.
The United States is in the midst of a 30-year, $2 trillion plan to build a new generation of nuclear-armed bombers, missiles, and submarines. The U.S. is already shelling out $75 billion each year — the equivalent of two Manhattan Projects annually — on new nuclear weapons. The commander-in-chief thinks it’s a ludicrous idea. “There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons. We already have so many,” Trump announced earlier this month, calling for new nuclear arms control negotiations with Russia and China. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”
First on the chopping block should be America’s new intercontinental ballistic missile, the Sentinel, which set off alarm bells when its cost overruns triggered a so-called Nunn-McCurdy breach: occurring if the cost of developing a new program increases by 25 percent or more. The Sentinel ICBM project — which involves not only building missiles but also modernizing 450 silos across five states, launch control centers, nuclear missile bases, and testing facilities — is already 81 percent over budget, with costs skyrocketing to more than $140 billion.
For decades, the U.S. has also poured hundreds of billions of dollars into what the Pentagon calls “missile defeat and defense,” which includes short, medium, and long-range systems to counter enemy ICBMs. The history of missile defense systems is, however, a history of failure.
The Government Accountability Office found that the Missile Defense Agency did not meet its planned testing goals in 2019 due to significant “developmental delays,” continuing “a decade-long trend in which MDA ha[d] been unable to achieve its fiscal year flight testing as scheduled.” That same year, the Pentagon canceled its Redesigned Kill Vehicle program due to technical design flaws.
It was just the latest in a long list of missile defense duds including $2.2 billion spent on worthless sea-based radar and $2.7 billion squandered on an unsuccessful blimp-based radar system. Keeping these programs on the books is a waste and cutting them, Hartung told The Intercept, would save $10 to $15 billion per year.
Hartung said that with some effort, and over about five years or more, a 50 percent cut is possible if the U.S. were to vastly reduce the size of the U.S. military; shutter the majority of the sprawling empire of U.S. overseas bases; and make significant cuts in Navy ships, ground vehicles, and nuclear weapons programs. He said that, over a decade, the U.S. could shed up to $2 trillion in military spending.
“That would mean abandoning America’s ‘cover the globe’ military strategy in favor of a genuinely defensive approach, and one would have to make sure that cuts in legacy systems weren’t just filled in with drones and other emerging tech,” he explained.