weapon defense contractor

NO MERRI

see arms sales

SEE MUSK SPACEX

see contractor

see funder dark money lobby

see revolving door

820 not quite sure we need new node/disambig but sparked by 

-=-=

BALLROOM JUN 2026 PUB CIT

https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/BALLROOM_BILLIONS_June_2026.pdf

Table 1: Corporate Ballroom Donors With New/Increased Gov. Contracts Over Last 6 Months Corporate Ballroom Donor Corporate Sector New & Increased Government Contracts Over Last 6 Months

Lockheed Martin Aerospace/Defense $43,800,000,000 Booz Allen Hamilton Management Consulting $4,200,000,000 Palantir Consulting/Tech $1,032,100,000 Parsons Engineering/Defense $446,900,000 Microsoft Big Tech $318,700,000 Amazon Big Tech $255,700,000 HP Big Tech $197,289,650 Caterpillar Construction $142,600,000 T-Mobile Telecommunications $22,374,089 Google Big Tech $16,400,000 NextEra Energy Energy $13,490,896 Comcast Telecommunications $13,438,137 Vantive Health Care $468,192 Union Pacific Railroad Transportation $55,820 Total $50,459,516,784

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MPU Producer/Host - Alex Kennell

2:56

2 minutes, 56 seconds

And what happened to each of them after 1789? Capital invested. And I'll add it all up right here as we go.

3:02

3 minutes, 2 seconds

In July 2025, 1789, invested in a company called Hadrian Automation.

3:09

3 minutes, 9 seconds

Hadrian was founded in 2020 and had no significant government contracts.

3:13

3 minutes, 13 seconds

Eight months later, it won a $900 million Navy contract to build automated submarine factories and an $80 million Army contract.

3:22

3 minutes, 22 seconds

That's $980 million total, all to a company that had never won a major government contract before.

3:28

3 minutes, 28 seconds

Don Jr's fond invested in Here's another one. Firehawk aerospace, whose entire government contract history fits in a single line.

3:37

3 minutes, 37 seconds

It had just one contract in 2022, and then 1789 invests and suddenly there winning Air Force and Space Force deals worth $8.9 million, plus a land gift in Oklahoma.

3:49

3 minutes, 49 seconds

And sometimes the perk goes beyond the money.

3:52

3 minutes, 52 seconds

1789 invested in reflection AI in 2025, and by May 2026, it became one of only eight AI companies in the country allowed to deploy inside Pentagon classified networks.

4:05

4 minutes, 5 seconds

Here's a company called Andrew that makes the autonomous weapons systems that define modern warfare, like drones and AI powered surveillance towers, and after 1789, invested.

4:15

4 minutes, 15 seconds

In June of 2025, the company won a $367 million border surveillance contract and a $23.9 million Army deal.

4:24

4 minutes, 24 seconds

It also has a potential 20 billion. Yes. Billion with AB.

4:28

4 minutes, 28 seconds

Army consolidation deal in the works so big a number that it totally dwarfs everything else on this list, but we can't even count it.

4:36

4 minutes, 36 seconds

So I'll just do 367 million plus 23.9 million.

4:56

4 minutes, 56 seconds

of all of these, there's one example that stands apart because this is one where we have proof the white House directly intervened.

5:03

5 minutes, 3 seconds

Falcon elements, a three year old startup with 30 employees that makes rare earth magnets.

5:08

5 minutes, 8 seconds

In August 2025, 1789, invested in Vulcan as a part of a $65 million funding round.

5:15

5 minutes, 15 seconds

Three months later, the Pentagon gave them a $620 million loan.

5:21

5 minutes, 21 seconds

Rare earth magnets are vital to military technology, and as the name suggests, they are rare. China has complete dominance over the industry.

5:30

5 minutes, 30 seconds

Both Democrats and Republicans have tried to change that. So Trump isn't the first to consider a loan of this sort.

5:39

5 minutes, 39 seconds

it went out without competitive bids without the technical disclosures that are used to verify whether a project is even viable before public money goes in.

5:50

5 minutes, 50 seconds

That was waived.

5:51

5 minutes, 51 seconds

the push for this loan came directly from Peter Navarro, Trump's senior trade adviser and a close personal friend of Don Jr.

5:57

5 minutes, 57 seconds

So close that Don Jr visited Navarro in prison and was one of the few people Navarro's latest book was dedicated He's a friend legitimately can't believe that this is happening to him,

6:08

6 minutes, 8 seconds

One Pentagon employee told ProPublica that the call came, quote, from the white House.

6:12

6 minutes, 12 seconds

We have to get this done, Staff worked late nights for weeks to push the loan through when deals like this normally take months.

6:20

6 minutes, 20 seconds

the time of 1789, investment Vulcan was valued at around 200 million. After the Pentagon loan, the valuation jumped to nearly $2 billion.

6:29

6 minutes, 29 seconds

technically, this one's alone.

6:30

6 minutes, 30 seconds

Not a contract, but it's still $620 million of our tax money going to a three year old startup with fewer employees than your local target, with no competitive process in a phone call from the white House to push it through.

...

5:03

5 minutes, 3 seconds

Falcon elements, a three year old startup with 30 employees that makes rare earth magnets.

5:08

5 minutes, 8 seconds

In August 2025, 1789, invested in Vulcan as a part of a $65 million funding round.

5:15

5 minutes, 15 seconds

Three months later, the Pentagon gave them a $620 million loan.

5:21

5 minutes, 21 seconds

Rare earth magnets are vital to military technology, and as the name suggests, they are rare. China has complete dominance over the industry.

5:30

5 minutes, 30 seconds

Both Democrats and Republicans have tried to change that. So Trump isn't the first to consider a loan of this sort.

5:39

5 minutes, 39 seconds

it went out without competitive bids without the technical disclosures that are used to verify whether a project is even viable before public money goes in.

5:50

5 minutes, 50 seconds

That was waived.

5:51

5 minutes, 51 seconds

the push for this loan came directly from Peter Navarro, Trump's senior trade adviser and a close personal friend of Don Jr.

5:57

5 minutes, 57 seconds

So close that Don Jr visited Navarro in prison and was one of the few people Navarro's latest book was dedicated He's a friend legitimately can't believe that this is happening to him,

6:08

6 minutes, 8 seconds

One Pentagon employee told ProPublica that the call came, quote, from the white House.

6:12

6 minutes, 12 seconds

We have to get this done, Staff worked late nights for weeks to push the loan through when deals like this normally take months.

6:20

6 minutes, 20 seconds

the time of 1789, investment Vulcan was valued at around 200 million. After the Pentagon loan, the valuation jumped to nearly $2 billion.

6:29

6 minutes, 29 seconds

technically, this one's alone.

6:30

6 minutes, 30 seconds

Not a contract, but it's still $620 million of our tax money going to a three year old startup with fewer employees than your local target, with no competitive process in a phone call from the white House to push it through.

6:42

6 minutes, 42 seconds

So I'm going to count it So it turns out the fastest way to win a government contract is to put the president's son on your board.

6:51

6 minutes, 51 seconds

I want to bring us back to Eric, because this is where things get really egregious.

6:57

6 minutes, 57 seconds

Power us is a drone company that both brothers invested in, in April 2026, it won an Air Force contract to sell interceptor drones.

7:04

7 minutes, 4 seconds

How much was never disclosed. Then there's another drone company, Unusual Machines. Don Jr is an advisor with a financial stake in the company.

7:13

7 minutes, 13 seconds

An October 2025 at one what its own CEO called, quote, the largest government contract in the company's history.

7:21

7 minutes, 21 seconds

The amount was also never disclosed.

7:23

7 minutes, 23 seconds

Unusual machines signed a $5 million supply deal with powers, so government money flows to power.

7:29

7 minutes, 29 seconds

US powers, pays unusual machines, Eric gets paid and Don Jr gets paid twice. It's a loop.

7:38

7 minutes, 38 seconds

This is the type of mechanism that helps Don Jr go from 50 million to 300 million, and helps Eric go from 40 million to 400 million.

7:47

7 minutes, 47 seconds

The contracts don't go to them directly, but they do go to the companies and they own pieces of these companies. So every government contract makes those pieces worth much more.

8:22

8 minutes, 22 seconds

the fund is still growing.

8:24

8 minutes, 24 seconds

Currently managing $3.5 billion in assets with a stated goal of $10 billion.

8:55

8 minutes, 55 seconds

So how is any of this legal?

8:59

8 minutes, 59 seconds

If a mid-level contract worker at a Navy base owns stock in a company bidding for one of her contracts, she would lose her job. She would likely face criminal charges, too.

9:08

9 minutes, 8 seconds

for Don Jr and Eric, there's nothing. No law covers the president's children.

9:14

9 minutes, 14 seconds

There's no requirement to recuse themselves from decisions that benefit their investments.

---

===

MPU 526

https://substack.perfectunion.us/p/how-trump-is-helping-military-contractors

*By Lucy Dean Stockton, More Perfect Union

In recent years, the Pentagon has welcomed new contracting processes that pad military contractors’ profits — a trend that is now being turbocharged under President Donald Trump, and the military-industrial complex is thrilled.

Typically, when the government buys a product or service, it uses competitive contracts to ensure that taxpayers get a fair price. But in the last few decades, the Department of Defense — with the blessing of bipartisan lawmakers — has embraced alternative processes that let contractors circumvent many of the mandated regulations governing Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) contracts, like accounting standards, cost negotiations, and intellectual property rights limitations. This means that some agencies have been empowered to negotiate terms that look closer to normal business contracts, but often offer a worse deal for U.S. taxpayers.

“The Pentagon is increasingly relying on rapid acquisition pathways that subvert competition to acquire weapons,” Julia Gledhill, a research analyst at the Stimson Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit focused on global peace, told More Perfect Union. “Legislators have totally kneecapped the Pentagon’s ability to negotiate contracts with military contractors, meaning that both the military and taxpayers are being fleeced by these companies.”

These alternative contracting mechanisms, including “non-traditional contracting” and “Other Transaction Authority” (OTA) procurement, have vastly expanded over the last decade within agencies like the DOD and the Department of Homeland Security. This has corrupted a process that was originally designed to produce narrow contracts for innovative products into a major acquisition vehicle for basic procurement from well-established military contractors as well.

In 2025, these kinds of OTA contracts amounted to more than $18 billion in government spending. Across the board, it means that prototyping agreements have become much more common and expensive than basic procurement agreements.

“ The OTA is an existing vehicle that, if they expand it, it helps speed the money out the door.” Bill Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told More Perfect Union. “It’s less record keeping, less scrutiny, and it’s the perfect vehicle for lining the pockets of both the old and the new contractors.”

In April 2025, Trump signaled that he would accelerate the shift towards rapid acquisition processes through an executive order to overhaul the DOD’s procurement process. The order specifically requested that the new processes “expedite acquisitions…including a first preference for commercial solutions and a general preference for Other Transactions Authority.”

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And the military-industrial complex is loving it. On an April 23 earnings call, Lockheed Martin President Jim Taiclet called the Iran War and the Trump administration’s focus on “agility” in military contracting, “a golden opportunity right now based on who’s in government, their experience, their willingness to change the demand that they have for what we do and our partners in our industry do.”

“We can move the contracting system from this FAR cost — Federal Acquisition Regulation -based, cost-based Truth [in] Negotiation Act burden that we’ve all had — and move it more towards a commercial contracting system,” Taiclet told investors. Venture-backed investors, he said, “are helping us and the government get out of our traditions and into a more agile contracting scenario.”

Lockheed Martin has won nearly $50 billion in government contracts since 2008, more than 97 percent of which were with the Department of Defense. The last quarter of 2025 represented their biggest season of contracts ever. In 2024, they were the fourth-highest awarded OTA contract recipient with the Defense Department, just behind peer weapons manufacturer Northrop Grumman.

Last year, Lockheed Martin spent more than $15 million lobbying lawmakers, including on “acquisition policy,” among other issues.

Lockheed Martin did not respond to More Perfect Union’s request for comment.

Northrop Grumman executives echoed the excitement about the expansion of OTAs. On an April 22 earnings call, Northrop Grumman President Kathy Warden told investors that the company is “seeing more use of OTAs and other nontraditional contracting mechanisms.”

These contracts have been lucrative for the defense company and its subsidiaries, which won nearly $7 billion in total Defense Department contracts in 2025.

“I don’t see a desire by the department to push industry profitability down,” Warden told shareholders. “I see a real alignment here and an opportunity for us to work with the department to create better economics for industry and the government.”

Northrop Grumman spent more than $8 million lobbying on acquisition policy, including specific lobbying on Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery Act of 2025, which expands the use of OTAs in military procurement.

Northrop Grumman did not respond to a request for comment.

Other military contractors, like L3Harris Technologies, an American defense technology company, echoed this sentiment.

“I have to give the Department of War credit for their innovative approach to acquisition here,” L3Harris Technologies Chairman Christopher Kubasik told investors on an April 30 earnings call. “What is going on now has never been done in the history of our country, and they are going fast. We and the rest of the defense industrial base are keeping up with them to the best of our ability. I think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

L3Harris Technologies won $318 million in OTA contracts last year, the 6th highest of any military contractor. They were awarded $7.6 billion in total government contracts last year.

Defense contractors’ profit margins already far outpace most other industries by as much as four times. While typical commercial industry profits sit around 6 percent, many military contractors see profits of at least 15 percent, paid almost entirely by U.S. taxpayers. Military contractors have received more than half of all Pentagon spending since 2020. And as the industry has grown more consolidated, the remaining companies are exercising even more power over the Pentagon.

The defense industry spends tens of millions of dollars lobbying the government each year. In 2025, the industry collectively spent a record-breaking $198 million to influence lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Last year, the Pentagon failed its financial audit for the eighth consecutive year, after auditors found significant accounting errors, missing information, and billions of dollars unaccounted for. It remains the only major U.S. federal agency that has never passed an audit.

“We’re experiencing one of the biggest military spending buildups in American history,” Gledhill said. “So you can imagine that a combination of a $1.5 trillion military budget and a less competitive, less accountable weapons acquisition process is really the perfect recipe for fleecing the American people in the name of weapons production and procurement.”

The use of OTAs may also become particularly useful for the DOD as it launches Trump’s Golden Dome Project, which the Congressional Budget Office estimated this week could cost up to $1.2 trillion over 20 years. The project, which is heavily reliant on satellites, would likely benefit from Trump’s Dec. 18, 2025 outer space-focused executive order in which he urged agencies to act with “a first preference for commercial solutions and a general preference for Other Transactions Authority or Space Act Agreements” to promote streamlined acquisitions.

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an 5 26

As President Donald Trump's war withIranhas dragged on for the last two months, a new NOTUS reportrevealed that defense contractors have been flooding congressional candidates with their hands on major regulatory powers with campaign money.

In a report published Friday, NOTUS revealed several telling findings from campaign contribution data pulled from Jan. 1 through March 31, revealing that "the defense industry spent millions" to boost the funding for candidates likely to play a role in regulatory decisions surrounding them, as well as other "competitive races" in general.

"Some of the lawmakers who have received the most contributions from defense interests sit on key congressional committees that routinely make decisions that profoundly affect the financial fortunes of military contractors," NOTUS explained. "For example, Congress is tasked with scrutinizing the Pentagon’s $1.5 trillion budget request for 2027 — a nearly $500 billion increase."

Political action committees connected to "11 defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Leidos, RTX, Anduril," poured a total of $4.7 million into congressional campaigns during the first quarter of 2026, NOTUS found.

The report further dug into the specific lawmakers being wooed with big money donations and how much they have been taking in.

"Rep. Ken Calvert [a California Republican] chairs the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which is charged with drafting the Defense Department’s budget," the report continued. "The Republican is running in a competitive race after California Democrats gerrymandered his district, and his campaign committee received more than $200,000 during the first three months of 2026 from defense contractor PACs and direct contributions from top defense executives, according to FEC records."

Across two days in early March, Calvert took in two separate payments from "from leaders at military vehicle manufacturer AM General: Darrell Duckworth, an executive director, and Chief Financial Officer Ryan DuRussel." A week and change later, "the political action committees of Lockheed Martin and RTX, Raytheon’s parent company," also made two separate donations of $5,000 to the lawmaker. A senior congressional adviser for Calvert insisted to NOTUS that "His votes and actions are always based on what he believes is in the best interest of the constituents he represents and all Americans."

"House Armed Services Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers of Alabama received $68,000 last quarter through his campaign," the report added. "Rogers, a Republican who oversees the National Defense Authorization Act, has said he’s focused on making it easier for new defense firms such as Anduril and ShieldAI to secure defense contracts. Palmer Luckey, co-founder of Anduril, donated $7,000 to Rogers’ campaign in March."

It has not just been Republicans getting this money, either, with NOTUS reporting that most Democrats continue to accept defense PAC money, despite some swearing it off. Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, received "about $130,000 from industry PACs and executives." This included "$7,000 from Anduril co-founder and CEO Brian Schimpf, $1,000 from RTX Vice President of State and Local Government Relations Peter Holland and $1,000 from BAE Systems Vice President of Strategy Chris Rappa," as well as, "$5,000 contributions from PACs tied to defense contractors Northrop Grumman, SpaceX and Leonardo DRS."

In an email to the outlet, Smith also asserted that these extensive contrbituons would not have any sway over his voting decisions.

"I have opposed the Iran War since before it started and I oppose the $1.5 trillion defense budget increase," Smith said. "No contribution changes that. I’ve spent decades pushing back on wasteful defense spending and challenging entrenched interests in the Pentagon."

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MMA

The recent lack of disclosures are not the first time Keane and Fox have failed to mention his business ties and potential conflicts of interest. In 2017, Media Matters reported that Keane repeatedly called for an increase in military spending while sitting on the board of directors of General Dynamics, a major defense contractor. (Keane is no longer a board member at General Dynamics.)

lobby etc

defense-contractors

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an 2 26

Punchbowl News reported on Tuesday that President Donald Trump wanted a hefty budget for the start of his "Golden Dome" project, but even Republicans have no idea what's going on with it.

Speaking with Republicans on Capitol Hill, Briana Reilly and Anthony Adragna found that even they don't know what has been done or what will happen in the next year.

The so-called "Golden Dome" is supposed to be similar to the Israeli anti-missile system in place that detects and shoots down any aerial weapons coming into the country. The United States, however, is over 400 times the size of Israel. Part of Trump's reasoning for demanding Greenland become part of the U.S. was the claim that he wanted the dome to stretch all the way there.

That would mean expanding the area under the "Golden Dome" to over 1,000 times the size of Israel.

A report titled Build Your Own Golden Dome: A Framework for Understanding Costs, Choices, and Tradeoffs from the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute estimated the cost at anywhere between $252 billion and $3.6 trillion over 20 years.

Thus far, Congress has allocated $23 billion to the Department of Defense. Lawmakers have since been asking what they got for that.

Punchbowl cited Pentagon officials telling the Hill they would speak to Congress about its detailed plans. But that was three months ago. Lawmakers are still waiting.

“I would hope we could have hearings on it — both classified and unclassified — to lay out the plan and also talk about budgets and where the money’s coming from, and how we’re going to integrate technology,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) told Punchbowl.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast (R-Fla.) anticipates there are going to be huge arguments over the project from now on.

“It’s stirring, big debate here,” Mast revealed.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is a top lawmaker on the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee. Speaking to Punchbowl, she explained that the GOP members were happy to turn over the billions, but they don't know where they have disappeared to.

“I can tell you how much we included within the reconciliation bill for Golden Dome, but in terms of what it exactly means, I think the Congress is still waiting to hear on that as well,” she said. “That’s what I’d like to know.”

One of the biggest fiscal complaints about the Pentagon is that the Defense Department budget has ballooned to $1 trillion only to deliver years late at twice the price.

"Many weapons systems also don’t work too well. The F-35 works less than one-third of the time. The Navy is retiring Littoral Combat Ships decades ahead of schedule because they can’t perform the missions the Navy needs. Army leaders cancelled the Future Combat System without producing a single operational vehicle," wrote Dan Grazier, senior fellow and director of the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center.

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an intercept 5 25

The Intercept reports Donald Trump’s Pentagon budget proposal will almost certainly lavish Special Government Employee and Trump Senior Advisor Elon Musk and his company SpaceX with new expensive projects.

“No matter how you slice it, the Pentagon budget is obscenely high at a time when the fundamentals of our diplomatic infrastructure are being decimated, the social safety net is being shredded, and medical and scientific research are under attack,” said William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

In addition to Trump’s plan to budget an undisclosed sum for “U.S. space dominance,” the most obvious project benefiting Musk is a missile shield, dubbed the Golden Dome.

READ MORE: Trump’s toadies are peddling a dangerous new lie

“… Pentagon [funds] have as much to do with pork barrel politics and techno-fantasies like the Golden Dome as they do with a sound defense strategy,” said Hartung, who added that it was clear current resources going to the Pentagon “are not only excessive but are more likely to undermine than promote our security.”

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The Golden Dome project involves launching a network of surveillance satellites to detect and track enemy missiles targeting the United States. Musk wants to use his SpaceX resources to build both the satellites and the rockets. The Intercept reports SpaceX is already the top Pentagon supplier of launch services and low-Earth-orbit communications systems.

However, Reuters reports SpaceX is proposing to provide Golden Dome technology to the Defense Department through a “subscription service,” similar to Tesla’s $12.99 monthly EV-charging services to non-Tesla owners. Such a subscription will charge U.S. taxpayers considerably more than $12 a month while putting technical knowledge of Musk’s seek-and-strike missile system under an intellectual property lock.

Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, said there is also no determining what happens to the system, or if it would even be usable should a new president refuse to renew Musk’s contract.

READ MORE:'You see falls in politics — but not like this': DeSantis’ star imploding amid fraud scandal

“With his subscription model plan, Musk is looking to both retain control of these systems and keep taxpayer dollars flowing his way,” Murphy told the Intercept.

Democratic lawmakers are already calling for the Pentagon’s acting inspector general to review Musk’s role in the bidding process for the missile defense shield.

“Mr. Musk’s formal or informal participation in any process to award a government contract raises serious conflict of interest concerns, including the possibility that SpaceX is a top contender for the Golden Dome contract because of Mr. Musk’s position in the government,” lawmakerswrote.

If the inspector general finds Musk provided an advantage to SpaceX in the bidding process, lawmakers could then request the findings be remanded to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, which would be more likely to happen under a future Democratic administration.

*Read the full Intercept report here.

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6 24

­C­o­m­p­a­n­i­e­s P­r­o­f­i­t­i­n­g f­r­o­m t­h­e G­a­z­a G­e­n­o­c­i­d­e

AEROVIRONMENT (NASDAQ: AVAV)

AGILITE

AIMPOINT

AM GENERAL

*BAE SYSTEMS (LSE: BA)

*BOEING (NYSE: BA)

*CATERPILLAR (NYSE: CAT)

*COLT (PSE: CZG)

CORSIGHT

DAY & ZIMMERMANN

DJI

*ELBIT SYSTEMS (NASDAQ & TASE: ESLT)

EMTAN

FLYER DEFENSE

FORD (NYSE: F)

*GENERAL DYNAMICS (NYSE: GD)

*GENERAL ELECTRIC (NYSE: GE)

GENERAL MOTORS (NYSE: GM)

GHOST ROBOTICS

GOOGLE/ALPHABET (NASDAQ: GOOG)

HYUNDAI (KRX: 329180)

INFINIDOME

ISRAEL AEROSPACE INDUSTRIES

JCB

*L3HARRIS TECHNOLOGIES (NYSE: LHX)

*LEONARDO (BIT: LDO)

LEUPOLD & STEVENS

*LOCKHEED MARTIN (NYSE: LMT)

MDT ARMOR

MERCEDES (FWB: MBG)

NEXTVISION

NORDIC AMMUNITION COMPANY

*NORTHROP GRUMMAN (NYSE: NOC)

OSHKOSH (NYSE: OSK)

*PALANTIR (NYSE: PLTR)

*PAZ OIL (TASE: PZOL)

PLASAN

RAFAEL

*RENK (FRA: ZAR)

RHEINMETALL (FWB: RHM)

*ROLLS-ROYCE (LSE: RR)

*RTX (NYSE: RTX)

SHIELD AI

SK GROUP

SKYDIO

SMARTSHOOTER

SPEARUAV

*TEXTRON ( NYSE: TXT)

*THYSSENKRUPP (FWB: TKA)

TOYOTA (NYSE: TM)

*VALERO (NYSE: VLO)

WOODWARD INC (NSDQ: WWD)

XTEND

AIRLINES, SHIPPING, LOGISTICS

The companies listed here have provided Israel with weapons and other military equipment used in its attacks on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria since October 2023.

Last updated on May 28, 2024

Companies marked with () are included in our divestment list.* The list below is not intended to be used as either a divestment list or a boycott list, as it includes many privately-owned companies as well as companies with a very minor or one-time involvement.

==

https://www.alternet.org/military-industrial-complex-racket-tamed/

...

Recently, I was talking with a senior enlisted colleague about why so few top-ranking officers are willing to speak truth to the powerless (that’s you and me) even after they retire. He mentioned credibility. To question the system, to criticize it, to air dirty laundry in public is to risk losing credibility within the club and so to be rejected as a malcontent, disloyal, even “unbalanced.” Then, of course, that infamous revolving door between the military and giant weapons makers like Boeing and Raytheon simply won’t spin for you. Seven-figure compensation packages, like the one current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin gained from Raytheon after his retirement as an Army general, won’t be an option. And in America, who doesn’t want to cash in while gaining more power within the system?

Quite simply, it pays so much better to mouth untruths, or at least distinctly less-than-full-truths, in service to the powerful.And with that in mind, here, at least as I see it, are a few full truths about my old service, the Air Force, that I guarantee you I won’t be applauded for mentioning. How about this as a start: that the production of F-35s — an overpriced “Ferrari” of a fighter jet that’s both too complex and remarkably successful as an underperformer — should be canceled (savings: as much as $1 trillion over time); that the much-touted new B-21 nuclear bomber isn’t needed (savings: at least $200 billion) and neither is the new Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (savings: another $200 billion and possibly the entire Earth from doomsday); that the KC-46 tanker is seriously flawed and should be canceled (savings: another $50 billion).

Now, tote it up. By canceling the F-35, the B-21, the Sentinel, and the KC-46, I singlehandedly saved the American taxpayer roughly $1.5 trillion without hurting America’s national defense in the least. But I’ve also just lost all credibility (assuming I had any left) with my old service.

Look, what matters to the military-industrial complex isn’t either the truth or saving your taxpayer dollars but keeping those weapons programs going and the money flowing. What matters, above all, is keeping America’s economy on a permanent wartime footing both by buying endless new (and old) weapons systems for the military and selling them globally in a bizarrely Orwellian pursuit of peace through war.

How are Americans, Ike’s “alert and knowledgeable citizenry,” supposed to end a racket like this? We certainly should know one thing by now: the MIC will never check itself and Congress, already part of it thanks to impressive campaign donations and the like by major weapons makers, won’t corral it either. Indeed, last year, Congress shoveled $45 billion more than the Biden administration requested (more even than the Pentagon asked for) to that complex, all ostensibly in your name. Who cares that it hasn’t won a war of the faintest significance since 1945. Even “victory” in the Cold War (after the Soviet Union imploded in 1991) was thrown away. And now the complex warns us of an onrushing “new cold war” to be waged, naturally, at tremendous cost to you, the American taxpayer....

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an 12 22

no lnx tet

'No justification': Peace advocates explode after House approves gigantic $858 billion Pentagon budget

Brett Wilkins and Common Dreams December 09, 2022

Peace advocates on Thursday slammed the House of Representatives' passage of a mammoth $858 billion military spending billas an early holiday gift for the Pentagon and the weapons corporations who benefit from the United States' ongoing—but largely forgotten—War on Terror.

House lawmakers voted 350-80 in favor of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with 45 Democrats and 35 Republicans voting "no."

The new NDAA authorizes an $80 billion military spending increase over the 2022 bill, and $118 billion more than when President Joe Biden took office in 2021. The 2023 allocation is more than the combined military budgets of China, India, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea, according to the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). It's also more than the annual gross domestic product of countries including Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey, based on United Nations figures.

The $858 billion figure does not include additional spending on the U.S. nuclear arsenal, contributions to Ukraine's defense, or veterans' benefits.

Progressives including Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Jesús "Chuy" García (D-Ill.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Marc Pocan (D-Wis.), Katie Porter (D-Calif.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) were among those who rejected the bill.

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"While working families are being crushed by inflation, we shouldn't be spending $45 billion MORE than the president requested in the NDAA," tweeted Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), who opposed the bill. "Certainly not on top of an already bloated $800+ billion Pentagon budget full of lobbyist giveaways. I voted NO."

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Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), another "no" vote, said he could not support a bill whose "topline remains billions of dollars above the president's request, adding to an already bloated Pentagon budget."

Calling the bill an "absolute disgrace," the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen tweeted that "increasing the budget for inflation is a lousy excuse. The minimum wage has been $7.25 for over a decade. Why is there always money for the military-industrial complex, but a livable wage is somehow 'too expensive'?"

"There is no justification to throw... $858 billion at the Pentagon when we're told we can't afford child tax credit expansion, universal paid leave, or other basic human necessities," the group added. "End of story."

Cole Harrison, executive director of Massachusetts Peace Action (MPA), said in a statement that "Waltham-based Raytheon and its fellow merchant of death, Lockheed, are celebrating Christmas early."

"Bring our war dollars home," Harrison added, noting that the fight for the bill is not over. "We don't need more weapons and more war. We need international respect and cooperation. We urge senators to vote 'no' on this disgraceful misappropriation of taxpayers' money."

MPA further noted that "the Pentagon recently failed its fifth consecutive annual audit, yet House members were quick to shower the unaccountable agency with taxpayers' money," and that "2.9 million children in the United States were lifted out of poverty in 2021 by the child tax credit, but that program expired after a year, and now our elected officials have decided to spend an equivalent amount on increasing the war budget."

Anti-war activists call on people to contact their senators and urge them to vote "no" on the NDAA—even while acknowledging that the mammoth package is all but sure to pass in the upper chamber.

Writing for the Qunicy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, National Taxpayers Union director of federal policy Andrew Lautz said that "Congress is rushing to pass the NDAA over the next week or two, before they go home for the holidays."

"Lawmakers will all but certainly pass a massive increase to the defense budget approved by members of both parties in both chambers of the legislature—at least $80 billion in total above 2022 levels, and that doesn't include tens of billions of dollars the Pentagon has received to combat Russia's invasion of Ukraine," he said.

"If so," Lautz added, "then Christmas will come early for the nation's military brass, who often get to spend without consequences from lawmakers who control their purse strings, and defense contractors, who benefit mightily from the taxpayer-funded largesse."

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Capitalizing on Conflict

February 25, 2021

Over the last two decades, the extensive network of lobbyists and donors tied to the defense industry directed $285 million in campaign contributions and $2.5 billion in lobbying spending as they pushed the government to approve tens of billions in arms sales.

[Read more]

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Pentagon Revolving Door Database - POGO.orghttps://www.pogo.org › database › pentagon-revolving-...

The Pentagon Revolving Door Database exposes the depth of the reciprocal relationship between senior Pentagon officials and defense contractors.

Brass Parachutes: The Problem of the Pentagon Revolving Doorhttps://www.pogo.org › report › 2018/11 › brass-parac...

Nov 5, 2018 — At least 380 high-ranking Department of Defense officials and military officers shifted into the private sector to become lobbyists, board ...

New watchdog report decries 'revolving door' between the ...https://www.defensenews.com › industry › 2018/11/06

Nov 6, 2018 — The Project On Government Oversight is concerned that former officials who join defense contractors will use their influence to win ...

Missing: logistic ?| Must include: logistic

The Industry Agenda: Military-Industrial Complex - Revolving ...https://therevolvingdoorproject.org › the-industry-agen...

Mar 17, 2021 — The defense industry is seeking to influence executive branch ... flow through the Defense Department, the National Security Council is ...

Latest Count of 'Revolving Door' Defense Contractors Names ...https://www.govexec.com › management › 2018/11 › l...

Nov 14, 2018 — As many as 380 high-ranking Defense Department officials and officers over the past decade left government to become lobbyists, ...

Biden Is Filling Top Pentagon Spots With Defense Contractorshttps://theintercept.com › 2021/05/28 › biden-pentagon...

May 28, 2021 — Whatever differences he has from Trump, a rejection of the revolving door between industry and the Pentagon is not one of them.

https://theintercept.com/2021/05/28/biden-pentagon-defense-contractors/

no lnx

jOE BIDEN IS FILLING TOP PENTAGON POSITIONS WITH DEFENSE CONTRACTORS

Some of the top Defense Department officials — including Defense Secretary nominee Lloyd Austin — have deep ties to the private sector.

Sara SirotaLee FangSara Sirota, Lee Fang

May 28 2021, 8:34 a.m.

THE PROSPECT OF another retired general becoming secretary of defense before finishing the mandatory seven-year, post-service waiting period wasn’t the only problem looming over President Joe Biden’s nomination of Lloyd Austin for the Cabinet position. The former four-star head of U.S. Central Command also sat on the board of Raytheon, a multibillion-dollar defense contractor that would be vying for the Pentagon’s most lucrative deals, raising questions about the military’s impartiality when issuing awards.

Austin’s nomination arrived on the heels of a corporate-ridden Defense Department under the Trump administration. Before Austin, another person with ties to Raytheon, the contractor’s chief lobbyist Mark Esper, held the reins of the Pentagon.Esper’s predecessors, Patrick Shanahan and James Mattis, had respectively been a senior vice president at Boeing and a board member of General Dynamics. Ellen Lord, the former president and CEO of Textron Systems, oversaw the Pentagon’s weapon acquisitions.

After the abundant conflicts of interest in Trump’s White House, some in Biden’s party pushed for someone without industry ties to lead the Defense Department.

“Despite President Trump’s boast that he would ‘drain the swamp’ and hire only ‘the best people,’ he has continuously failed to do so,” Reps. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Barbara Lee, D-Calif., wrote in a November 2020 letter to Biden. “We strongly encourage you to reject the mistaken nominations of the Trump era; and, again, commit to appointing Secretaries of Defense with no previous ties to defense contractors.”

Biden ignored their call. Whatever differences he has from Trump, a rejection of the revolving door between industry and the Pentagon is not one of them. In addition to Austin, the new White House has nominated or appointed a slew of corporate executives to serve at the upper echelons of a federal department whose enormous budget funnels billions of dollars to private companies every year.

Related

Biden Defense Secretary Nominee Lloyd Austin Comes Under Fire for Industry Connections]

Jack Poulson, executive director of the accountability nonprofit Tech Inquiry, which tracks tech and defense contractor influence in government, noted that there seemed to be a bipartisan consensus on the cozy relationship between the private and public sectors.

The pattern of Biden appointments of high-level Pentagon officials straight from consulting firms and corporations seeking influence with the government, said Poulson, risks “something close to pay-to-play in the tech national security arena.”

Ronald Moultrie, Biden’s pick to serve as Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, comes from at least a dozen consulting firms and contractors, which he joined after holding positions in the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and Navy.

He notably was a board member of Altamira Technologies, a defense contractor that recently won an award worth up to $950 million to support the Air Force’sAdvanced Battle Management System program that’s creating a high-speed network for military personnel to share information as they’re taking potentially lethal action.

For what differences Biden has from Trump, a rejection of the revolving door between industry and the Pentagon is not one of them.

Moultrie has a background that involves overt influence peddling, including work as a paid adviser to Resolute Public Affairs, a lobbying shop that touts its ability to intervene on behalf of clients on sensitive matters such as controls of foreign investments. Moultrie reported earning $350,000 since 2020 from the firm on his disclosure forms.

Moultrie also sat on the board of Pallas Advisors, a “strategic advisory firm specializing in navigating complex national and international security dynamics” founded by Sally Donnelly, a senior adviser to Mattis during his tenure as defense secretary. Donnelly, a former Amazon consultant, notoriously facilitated a private dinner between Mattis and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos while the Pentagon was developing a solicitation for a $10 billion Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud services contract. That contract is now entangled in a lawsuit Amazon filed after Microsoft won the award.

Silicon Valley-based corporations like Amazon have had growing influence inside the Department of Defense as the military embraces big data. The Pentagon has launched outreach initiatives like the flagship Defense Innovation Unit, whose managing director, Michael Brown, is now Biden’s choice to serve as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment, the position Lord previously held.

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Brown leads the Pentagon’s primary outreach to California’s technology giants — and was himself formerly CEO of Symantec Corporation and Quantum Corporation, multibillion-dollar companies in the cybersecurity and computer storage industries.

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In a recent “virtual fireside chat” with Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO who previously served as the founding chair of the Department of Defense’s Innovation Board, Brown expounded on the success of DIU for facilitating military partnerships with Silicon Valley. He emphasized that there was much more to be done.

“We need more cross-pollination, so there needs to be more folks from the tech world who get into government and going back out,” said Brown.

Frank Kendall III talks before the start of his confirmation hearing to be secretary of the Air Force before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on May 25, 2021. Frank Kendall talks before the start of his confirmation hearing to serve as secretary of the Air Force before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington, D.C., on May 25, 2021. Photo: Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

THIS WEEK, the Senate Armed Services Committee reviewed the nomination of Frank Kendall, chosen by Biden to lead the Air Force. Kendall, a former vice president at Raytheon who served as Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics for President Barack Obama, has spent the last few years as an adviser and consultant to defense contractors. Kendall’s disclosures show that the bulk of his income has come from advisingNorthrop Grumman, followed by income from Renaissance Strategic Advisors, an investment firm that arranges mergers and acquisitions in the defense sector.

Shawn Skelly, nominated as the assistant secretary of defense for readiness, comes to the Pentagon from CACI International, the sprawling contractor that serves military bases around the world.

The Biden administration is embracing corporate executives at a time when the Defense Department is acknowledging the disastrous effects of the neoliberal outlook that has dominated the corporate world since the 1980s.

“Together, a U.S. business climate that has favored short-term shareholder earnings (versus long-term capital investment), deindustrialization, and an abstract, radical vision of ‘free trade,’ without fair trade enforcement, have severely damaged America’s ability to arms itself today and in the future,” a January report from the Pentagon’s industrial policy office states.

“The recent wave of industry appointments certainly raises concern.”

Biden’s appointee to oversee this office, Jesse Salazar, comes from none other than management consulting giant McKinsey, responsible for facilitating mergers, acquisitions and offshoring that have consolidated industries and supply chains and moved manufacturing overseas.

While not working inside the Pentagon, Pete Buttigieg’s leadership of the Transportation Department is likely to bring another McKinsey alum in close proximity to the Defense Department, as the two set eyes on emerging aerospace technology. Buttigieg’s predecessor Elaine Chao, for example, participated in an industry event hosted by the Air Force last year to engage makers of electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles, or flying cars.

Heidi Shyu, nominated to be the Under Secretary for Defense Research, runs an aerospace and defense consulting firm, through which she advises a range of contractors as a consultant and a board member to several companies. Shyu advises traditional defense giants, such as Boeing, General Electric, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman, according to her recently filed ethics disclosure.

Shyu, a former Pentagon official in the Obama administration, also serves on the board of several drone-focused ventures, including Auterion Government Solutions, a start-up that provides artificial intelligence software for drones to the Pentagon, and Levitate Capital, which invests in autonomous aerial vehicles.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense, notably, will be staffed by many officials with close ties to contractors. Elizabeth George, the deputy general counsel for the Pentagon, is a former outside Google attorney through the firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Ahmad Khan, a special assistant to the secretary, comes from Govini, a start-up that won a $400 million contract in 2019 to help the Pentagon analyze data. Ely Ratner, also appointed as an adviser to the secretary, previously consulted for the defense IT firm SAIC and for WestExec Advisors, a firm founded by former Obama administration officials to help Silicon Valley firms win contracts with the government.

“Much of Biden’s policy circles are already strongly vying for increases to the Pentagon budget under a ‘great-power competition’ framing, especially with respect to integrating AI into U.S. battle networks,” said Poulson, the executive director of Tech Inquiry. “The recent wave of industry appointments certainly raises concern.”

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Reduce Corporate Influence at the Pentagon | Elizabeth Warrenhttps://elizabethwarren.com › plans › corporate-influen...

Let's shut the revolving door between giant contractors and the Pentagon and crack ... Coziness between defense lobbyists, Congress, and the Pentagon tilts ...

Missing: logistic ?| Must include: logistic

The Chief Management Officer of the Department of Defensehttps://dbb.defense.gov › Documents › ReportsPDF

Jun 1, 2020 — Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the United States posited ... regularly rotating through what is called a “revolving door” ...

392 pages

The Revolving Door and the Entrenchment of the Permanent ...https://www.degruyter.com › doi › peps-2015-0001 › html

by TK Duncan · 2015 · Cited by 16 — Every time the Congress authorizes a military appropriation, ... To date, the US defense sector's revolving door has not been analyzed in ...

Frank Kendall flies out of revolving door and into Air Force ...https://responsiblestatecraft.org › Air Force

May 24, 2021 — Biden's pick for secretary worked in Pentagon acquisitions before his most recent gigs consulting for top defense contractors.

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rev door mil logistic bd, hallib charged govt for meals never provided; did intial study  bush 41 that said pvt cheaper but real # 2x more $

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/study-says-nearly-half-of-defense-spending-for-9-11-wars-went-to-private-contractors

Sep 13, 2021 5:58 PM EDT

Up to half of the $14 trillion spent by the Pentagon since 9/11 went to for-profit defense contractors,a study released Monday found. While much of this money went to weapons suppliers, the research is the latest to point to the dependence on contractors for war-zone duties as contributing to mission failures in Afghanistan in particular.

In the post-9/11 wars, U.S. corporations contracted by the Defense Department not only handled war-zone logistics like running fuel convoys and staffing chow lines but performed mission-crucial work like [dyncorp]training and equipping Afghan security forces — security forces that collapsed last month as the Taliban swept the country.

Within weeks, and before the U.S. military had even completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban easily routed an Afghan government and military that Americans had spent 20 years and billions of dollars to stand up. President Joe Biden placed blame squarely on the Afghans themselves. “We gave them every chance,” he said last month. “What we could not provide them was the will to fight.”

But William Hartung, the author of Monday’s study by Brown University’s Costs of War project and the Center for International Policy,and others say it’s essential that Americans examine what role the reliance on private contractors played in the post-9/11 wars. In Afghanistan, that included contractors allegedly paying protection money to warlords and the Taliban themselves, and the Defense Department insisting on equipping the Afghan air force with complex Blackhawk helicopters and other aircraft that few but U.S. contractors knew how to maintain.

“If it were only the money, that would be outrageous enough,” Hartung, the director of the arms and security program at the Center for International Policy, said of instances where the Pentagon’s reliance on contractors backfired. “But the fact it undermined the mission and put troops at risk is even more outrageous.”

At the start of this year, before Biden began the final American withdrawal from Afghanistan, there were far more contractors in Afghanistan and also in Iraq than U.S. troops.

The U.S. saw about 7,000 military members die in all post-9/11 conflicts, and nearly 8,000 contractors, another Costs of War study estimates.[total pvt out# mil 150k?]

The Professional Services Council, an organization representing businesses contracting with the government, cited a lower figure from the U.S. Department of Labor saying nearly 4,000 federal contractors have been killed since 2001.

A spokeswoman pointed to a statement last month from the organization’s president, David J. Berteau: “For almost two decades, government contractors have provided broad and essential support for U.S. and allied forces, for the Afghan military and other elements of the Afghan government, and for humanitarian and economic development assistance.”

U.S. officials after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks embraced private contractors as an essential part of the U.S. military response.

It started with then-Vice President Dick Cheney, [nope bush 41 hallib study to pvtize]the former CEO of Halliburton. Halliburton received more than $30 billion to help set up and run bases, feed troops and carry out other work in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2008, the study says. Cheney and defense contractors argued that relying on private contractors for work that service members did in previous wars would allow for a trimmer U.S. military, and be more efficient and cost effective.

By 2010, Pentagon spending had surged by more than one-third, as the U.S. fought dual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In a post-9/11 American, politicians vied to show support for the military in a country grown far more security conscious.

“Any member of Congress who doesn’t vote for the funds we need to defend this country will be looking for a new job after next November,” the study notes Harry Stonecipher, then the vice president of Boeing, telling The Wall Street Journal the month after the attacks.[up 3-5% /yr soon to hill trillion; reconciliation 3.5 trill over 10 years so this is 2x?!]

And up to a third of the Pentagon contracts went to just five weapons suppliers. Last fiscal year, for example, the money Lockheed Martin alone got from Pentagon contracts was one and a half times the entire budgets of the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the study.

The Pentagon pumped out more contracts than it could oversee, lawmakers and government special investigators said.

For example, a Florida Republican Party official made millions on what lawmakers charged were excess profits when the U.S. granted a one-of-a-kind contract for fuel convoys from Jordan to Iraq, the study notes. The electrocution of at least 18 service members by bad wiring in bases in Iraq, some of it blamed on major contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root, was another of many instances where government investigations pointed to shoddy logistics and reconstruction work.

The stunning Taliban victory last month in Afghanistan is drawing attention now to even graver consequences: the extent to which the U.S. reliance on contractors may have heightened the difficulties of the Afghan security forces.

Jodi Vittori, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel and scholar of corruption and fragile states at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who was not involved in the study, points to the U.S. insistence that the Afghan air force use U.S.-made helicopters. Afghans preferred Russian helicopters, which were easier to fly, could be maintained by Afghans, and were suited to rugged Afghanistan.

When U.S. contractors pulled out with U.S. troops this spring and summer, taking their knowledge of how to maintain U.S.-provided aircraft with them, top Afghan leaders bitterly complained to the U.S. that it had deprived them of one essential advantage over the Taliban.

Hartung, like others, also points to the corruption engendered by the billions of loosely monitored dollars that the U.S. poured into Afghanistan as one central reason that Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed government lost popular support, and Afghan fighters lost morale.

Hillary Clinton, while secretary of state under President Barack Obama, accused defense contractors at risk in war zones of resorting to payoffs to armed groups, making protection money one of the biggest sources of funding for the Taliban.

The United States also relied, in part, on defense contractors to carry out one of the tasks most central to its hopes of success in Afghanistan — helping to set up and train an Afghan military and other security forces that could stand up to extremist groups and to insurgents, including the Taliban.

Tellingly, Vittori said, it was Afghan commandos who had consistent training by U.S. special operations forces and others who did most of the fighting against the Taliban last month.

Relying less on private contractors, and more on the U.S. military as in past wars, might have given the U.S. better chances of victory in Afghanistan, Vittori noted. She said that would have meant U.S. presidents accepting the political risks of sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and getting more body bags of U.S. troops back.

“Using contractors allowed America to fight a war that a lot of Americans forgot we were fighting,” Vittori said.

no lnx

https://kpfa.org/episode/upfront-september-14-2021/

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lil sis

biden draws foreign policy team from military- and tech-tied consulting and private equity firms

BY ROB GALBRAITH

DECEMBER 7, 2020

Several of President-elect Biden’s foreign policy cabinet members, advisors, and White House staff come from arms industry-tied WestExec Advisors and Pine Island Capital

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an 1120

ah

In 2019, Sen. David Perdue of Georgia profited handsomely when he sold his stock shares in the defense contractor BWX Technologies. And that sale, journalist Sam Brodey reports in the Daily Beast, came after the GOP senator had been chosen to head the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower.

Brodey explains that before Perdue was chosen for that position, he "began buying up stock in a company that made submarine parts." But after Perdue "began work on a bill that ultimately directed additional Navy funding for one of the firm's specialized products," Brodey notes, he "sold off the stock, earning him tens of thousands of dollars in profits."

According to Brodey, "in the month before he took over the job, Perdue did something unusual: he acquired up to $190,000 worth of stock in BWX Technologies, a company he had never invested in before. The Virginia-based firm had lucrative contracts with the U.S. Navy to develop high-tech components for its fleet of nuclear submarines — and it was looking to expand that business when lawmakers took on the 2019 version of the sweeping annual legislation that sets funding benchmarks for the U.S. military, called the National Defense Authorization Act."

[twt bwx]

bWX is among the companies that has a contract with the Pentagon for manufacturing key parts of submarines. Brodey reports that when Perdue filed a financial disclosure form for 2019, he "reported earnings of $15,000 to $50,000 in his trading of BWX."

Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight — a nonpartisan watchdog group — finds it troubling that Perdue would invest so heavily in a defense stock in light of his responsibilities on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Amey told the Beast, "Members have inside information about our national security and defense spending, and personally benefiting from that information should be banned."

Kedric Payne of the Campaign Legal Center cited Perdue's actions as an example of why many members of Congress avoid trading individual stocks. Payne told the Beast, "It is nearly impossible to make decisions affecting an industry and then receive a personal financial benefit without appearing to have a conflict of interest. Even if officials rely on financial advisors to make trading decisions on their behalf, the perception of conflicts of interest remains because the public does not know if there are winks and nods prompting the trades."

Perdue is defending one of two U.S. Senate seats in Georgia that has gone to a runoff set for January, and the outcome of those two Senate races could determine whether or not Republicans hold their Senate majority.

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1220 big arms sales uae lame duck ~ congress

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https://theintercept.com/2020/12/08/biden-defense-secretary-lloyd-austin-raytheon/

last MONTH, two progressive members of Congress sent President-elect Joe Biden a letter requesting that he commit to nominating a secretary of defense with no previous ties to weapons manufacturers. The letter, from Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisc., and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., cited President Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary Mark Esper — a former lobbyist for Raytheon, one the country’s largest defense contractors — and called on Biden to adopt a different standard and find a nominee with “no prior employment history with a defense contractor.”

But on Tuesday, Biden announced that he will nominate retired four-star Gen. Lloyd Austin III, once the top commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East and now a member of the board of directors at Raytheon. The company has been in the spotlight during the Trump administration in part because it supplies air-to-ground munitions for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and Austin’s role with Raytheon could be central to his confirmation fight.

austin oversaw U.S. operations in the Middle East until March 2016, a year after the Saudi-led intervention began. He retired from the military the next month and later joined the board of United Technologies, a defense contractor that merged with Raytheon earlier this year. In 2019, Raytheon proceeded with an $8 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which included air-to-ground munitions. After congressional Democrats blocked the sale on human rights grounds, the Trump administration helped force the sale through by declaring a state of emergency.

“Raytheon manufactures the bomb components that are used in Yemen. He bears a direct responsibility,” Phyllis Bennis, who directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, told The Intercept. “He was making money as a board member of this company that is directly responsible for the death and destruction there.”

William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, told The Intercept that picking Austin was “tantamount to making the position of secretary of defense the ‘secretary of defense contractors.’”

“The potential for conflicts is huge,” Hartung said. “Raytheon is deeply involved in controversial programs from unworkable missile defense projects to nuclear weapons — the new nuclear-armed cruise missile — to precision-guided bombs that have killed untold numbers of civilians in Saudi Arabia’s brutal war in Yemen. If General Austin were to recuse himself from decisions on programs and policies involving Raytheon, he could not carry out large parts of his job as defense secretary.”

Austin was reportedly selected from a pool of other leading contenders with ties to top weapons companies: Michèle Flournoy, the former undersecretary of defense for policy, joined the board of Booz Allen Hamilton in 2018, and Jeh Johnson, the former secretary of Homeland Security under President Barack Obama, sits on the board of Lockheed Martin.

One of only a few African Americans to ever become a four-star general in the Army, Austin was the first African American in charge of a regional combatant command, overseeing U.S. forces in the Middle East. And if confirmed, he will be the first Black secretary of defense. The Congressional Black Caucus leaned heavily on Biden to select either him or Johnson, who is also Black.

Austin was formerly the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, where he oversaw major troop withdrawals under Obama, before becoming the top U.S. commander in the Middle East. In the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State, he reportedly pushed for more restrictive rules of engagement in an effort to reduce civilian casualties, but from congressional Republicans who wanted the military to intervene in Syria.

“I’ve never met the man, but people who have worked with him say it will be easy for the White House with him in charge,” said Bennis. “That is, he’s unlikely to challenge his commander-in-chief. When you’re talking about orders that might violate international law or lead to the death of civilians, you want somebody who is willing to push back. That doesn’t sound like him.”

In contrast with other military leaders during the Obama administration, like Gens. David Petraeus or Stanley McChrystal, who maintained high profiles and sometimes clashed with the White House, Austin is known as a quieter presence. He earned the trust of many in Obama’s inner circle, including Biden.

In an op-ed in The Atlantic on Tuesday, Biden said that Austin “played a crucial role in bringing 150,000 American troops home from the [Iraqi] theater of war.”

“Pulling that off took more than just the skill and strategy of a seasoned soldier. It required Austin to practice diplomacy, building relationships with our Iraqi counterparts and with our partners in the region. He served as a statesman, representing our country with honor and dignity and always, above all, looking out for his people,” Biden wrote.

“I am certain that General Austin will find other ways to serve his country in retirement,” Obama said as the general exited the government in 2016. But since he left the military more than four years ago, Austin has formed extensive private-sector ties that could surface during his confirmation hearing. In addition to Raytheon, he joined the board of directors of the steel production company Nucor Corporation, Tenet Healthcare Corporation, and Guest Services Inc., a hospitality management company.

And both Austin and Antony Blinken — Biden’s nominee for secretary of state — have ties to Pine Island Capital Partners, a large investment firm that has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for acquisitions in defense companies this year,according to the New York Times.

Led by John Thain, the chief executive of Merrill Lynch at the time of its collapse in 2008, Pine Island boasts of an “experienced investment team with a group of deeply-connected and accomplished former senior government and military officials,” according to its website. In documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the firm notes that its team not only has “extensive connections to industry leaders,” but “unusual access to information.” Just last month, Pine Island raised $218 million to finance investments in “businesses in the defense, government service and aerospace industries.”

Austin joins an increasing number of generals and top military officials who exit to the private sector, holding lucrative positions at top companies. One 2018 study by the Project on Government Oversight tracked 380 cases of former military officers and Department of Defense officials who, in the previous years, became board members, executives, lobbyists, or consultants with defense companies.

Private-sector work was the subject of intense scrutiny during the confirmation hearing of Esper,Trump’s last defense secretary. Prior to joining the Trump administration in 2017 as army secretary, Esper worked as a senior lobbyist for Raytheon. He faced sharp questioning from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., over whether he would fully recuse himself from matters involving Raytheon as defense secretary.

When Esper did not commit to fully recusing himself from any decision involving Raytheon, Warren said that it “smacks of corruption, plain and simple.” It is unclear whether Senate Democrats will hold Austin to the similar standard, but his role with Raytheon could create ethics complications.

Austin is slated to face a rocky confirmation process, not only due to his business ties, but also because his nomination already was criticized as a violation of civil-military relations. By law, the secretary of defense position is a civilian position and not supposed to be held by recently retired officers. The rule is meant to emphasize civilian control over the military, and Austin has not yet undergone a legally required seven-year “cooling off” period. Austin’s confirmation will require Congress to waive that requirement — just as they did with Trump’s first defense secretary, retired Gen. James Mattis.

That puts Senate Democrats is a difficult position. Seventeen voted against granting Mattis the waiver, and the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., said at the time that he was unlikely to support a similar waiver in the future. In a statement on Tuesday, Reed said that he would review the nomination carefully. “One cannot separate the waiver from the individual who has been nominated,” the statement said.

Warren told CNN on Tuesday that she would oppose Austin’s nomination on the grounds that Congress shouldn’t grant waivers to recently retired generals.

“The principle of civilian control of the military is important. It’s not a guarantee that a civilian will be any more conscious of the consequences of war, but the prohibition should not be waived lightly,” said Bennis.

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no lnx

GOP under fire for slipping $30 billion Pentagon gift into coronavirus relief bill

https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/gop-under-fire-for-slipping-30-billion-pentagon-gift-into-relief-bill/

Written by Common Dreams August 1, 2020

In a floor speech late Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell described the GOP’s newly released coronavirus stimulus package as a “carefully tailored” plan to provide financial relief to desperate Americans.

But a look at the legislative text (pdf) released by Senate Republicans shows the HEALS Act is replete with massive gifts to the Pentagon and defense contractors that would do nothing to aid the unemployed, provide nutrition assistance to hungry children, prevent an avalanche of evictions, or stop the spread of coronavirus.

“Last time I checked F-35s don’t help families pay their bills,”Rep. Chuy García (D-Ill.) tweeted in response to the GOP’s proposal of $686 million in spending on new fighter jets.

The legislation also includes hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for surveillance planes, Apache helicopters, and armored vehicles.

The HEALS Act proposes a total of $29.4 billion in new military spending just a week after the House and Senate approved a $740.5 billion Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2021.

Meanwhile, as Common Dreams reported earlier Tuesday, the Republican package includes no money for state and local governments, election assistance, or the U.S. Postal Service. The legislation would also slash the weekly federal unemployment insurance boost from $600 to $200.

Roll Call’s John Donnelly reported Monday that “Senate Republicans have laced their roughly $1 trillion coronavirus relief package with at least $7 billion for weapons, most of which are built by leading contractors that contribute heavily to congressional campaigns.”

According to Donnelly:

The draft appropriations portion, made public Monday evening, includes money for fighter jets, helicopters, radars, ships, and armored vehicles that the measure’s authors have deemed “emergency” spending that is not capped by the budget control law…

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The top two defense contractors, Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co., would do especially well under the measure.

The list of weapons is topped by fully $1 billion for an unstated number of Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime surveillance jets. Also on the list is $283 million for Boeing Apache helicopters for the Army.

Boeing’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense anti-missile system, which is aimed at intercepting incoming ballistic missiles from sites in Alaska and California, would receive $200 million, and $243 million more would go to a missile defense radar program.

“People are dying, or worried about keeping a roof over their families’ heads, or cutting hours because their kids’ schools are closed,” said Anthony Weir, a lobbyist on nuclear disarmament and Pentagon spending at theFriends Committee on National Legislation. “And this is the time to jam some military procurement into this year that you didn’t get last year?”

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