Big government sometimes moves too slowly and with too much red tape to be effective. A new highly critical report from the Inspector General of Health and Human Services shows just how difficult it is for the feds to move faster on spending programs and still look out for taxpayer dollars.
National
Sunday Funnies…
Sometimes the comics don’t appear back among all the advertising inserts in your Sunday paper: they also can hide in plain sight amid the news items:
— Take the lead story in the Washington Post, which begins:
The Pentagon
…
Raising Hispanic Kids in a ‘Build a Fence’ World
My daughters have never met Arizona Governor Jan Brewer — and it’s likely they have never even heard her name.
Countdown to Sequestration: One Month to Go
Hardly seems like it was eight months ago today that Battleland began its monthly countdown to the pain of sequestration:
“That’s nine months from today,” we noted back on April 2. “Seems like a long time, but it’ll be …
Parking Spaced Out
Somehow it seems a bit daft for the Office of the Chief Procurement Officer at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington, D.C., to issue a 25-page solicitation seeking to rent a single parking space in Seattle, Wash., for …
This Drone Notion Is Starting to Get Serious
This looks, and sounds, like the first U.S. military drone to, well, look and sound like a warplane.
It was only two days ago that Battleland posted a photo of the Navy’s X-47B Unmanned Combat Aircraft System demonstrator “landing” gently on the flight deck of the USS Harry S Truman – with help from a crane.
Meanwhile, back …
With Echoes of Trayvon Martin, Florida Man Claims Self Defense in Shooting Death of Teen
Florida‘s judicial system is set to experience its second high profile case this year in which a person accused in a homicide may invoke the state’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” self-defense statute.
“In our country, where a day of fully-fledged fighting costs $1.5 billion, just by shortening a war by five days, you ended up cover the whole investment in the system.”
— Israeli defense chief Ehud Barak, speaking at the Pentagon Thursday, on his country’s apparent $7.5 billion investment in missile defense, including the Iron Dome system that recently knocked down 85% of incoming threatening missiles from Gaza.
Graphically Panetta
The heck with boring official oil-painting portraits of defense secretaries…Leon Panetta is blazing a new path by appearing in a graphic novel.
Killing Geronimo: The Hunt for Osama bin Laden is one of those grown-up comic …
The Combat Exclusion Policy: Under Attack
The women in combat issue has reared its head again with the recent lawsuit filed on behalf of four female military personnel by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Service Women’s Action Network (SWAN).
The suit …
King of Battle
Soldiers with the U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division, observe the impact of artillery rounds fired from an Afghan D-30 howitzer during training with Afghan troops in eastern Afghanistan, Nov. 21.
Saluting Military Mutts
Here at Battleland, we marvel at the military world in all its crazy glory. One of its elements that seems to have gotten a lot of attention in recent years is the growing use of dogs to perform various martial missions, ranging …
“…When our nation's leaders send our sons and daughters to fight, we must give them a clear mission to accomplish…”
— Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, at the ground-breaking ceremony Wednesday for an education center at the Vietnam Wall Memorial in Washington, speaking of the “meaningful lessons” he said the nation learned from that war.