Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Let me file that under fuck it.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

Innocent people do not delay justice.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Defense Acquisition: Easy as Pie!

Defense Acquisition: Easy as Pie!

by | 111 Comments

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We all saw that the President-elect went after the F-35 program this morning. We now know, thanks to Kurt Eichenwald, that what appears to have set him off was a CNN piece yesterday about the program and its price tag.

Regardless of whether the F-35 program is a good idea, or if its anything other than a trillion dollar weaponized Keynesian jobs program, the Defense acquisition process is not for the faint of heart. Here’s the Defense acquisition portal. Here’s the Introduction to Defense Acquisition. And here’s what it looks like as a flow chart:

daularge

The process is detailed and complex. It is covered in Defense Management at the Senior Leader Colleges (the war colleges) and there is a stand alone school just for Defense acquisitions: Defense Acquisitions University, which is attended by acquisitions officers/professionals. I sat through, barring other duties or being on Temporary Duty, four years of my teammate teaching Defense Management. Its dry, its tedious, its very, very, very important! I don’t remember any lesson materials dealing with tweeting!

Reader Interactions

111Comments

  2. 2.

    jl

    Thanks. Let us know when the Annex on Executive Branch Tweets, and associated protocols, come out. with some helpful guidance.

  12. 12.

    Corner Stone

    Who advises Mitt Romney? What fucking moron told him to meet with Trump? Not once, not twice, but thrice that cuck crowed.

  17. 17.

    Manyakitty

    @Adam L Silverman: There you go, being human again.

    I can’t begin to tell you how much I appreciate your posts. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and expertise. It’s even more important now.

  20. 20.

    khead

    I mentioned this last week. If I had a pile of cash I would just sit around and short whatever company Trump decides to take a shot at on any given day.

  21. 21.

    jl

    @rikyrah: I did, and didn’t see any new smoking gun news.
    Did see a link about the puzzle of mismatch between electronic and paper vote tallies in Rust Belt states, but I have read up on that already.
    But that depends on how well the statistical analysis matched the counties. IIRC, a lot of poorer more rural counties jumped on the crummy, poorly planned and supervised, corporate boondoggle, Bush II voting machine modernization funding in early 2000s.

    Is this some new mess?

  24. 24.

    Lizzy L

    @rikyrah: That’s good news. He’d be a better choice than Ellison — I’ve got nothing against Ellison, but I think he should stay in Congress.

  25. 25.

    Corner Stone

    Any Elector who goes in on Dec 19 and casts a vote for Trump needs to be treated as an enemy of the United States.

  26. 26.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah: Interesting. I wonder what happens with Schumer and other old school Dems who endorsed Ellison (I suspect) because they hate Howard Dean

  27. 27.

    Adam L Silverman

    @jl: 82 optical scanner machines in the City of Detroit were actually broken on election day/broke during election day. The attempt to get the Federal Court to stop the audit and recount by the Michigan GOP has cited this as a reason why it can’t be done. So they had 82 machines that didn’t work in Detroit on election day, didn’t do anything about it, and are now using that information as a justification for not doing an audit and/or recount.

    http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/12/10/what-if-michigan-held-key-presidential-election/95142214/

    On Election Day 2016, more than 80 optical scan readers, which are about 12 years old, broke down in Detroit, complicating the original count.

  28. 28.

    Kropadope

    @NotMax:

    No Exxon or Mobil stations on the island for me to drive an extra block past to avoid patronizing.

    I’m feeling more vindicated by the day in my decision to no longer own a car after the term of my lease is up.

  29. 29.

    Corner Stone

    No one really thought Trump was going to hold a press Q&A before Inauguration Day, did they? He most likely won’t hold one afterwards, either.

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne

    So in the mail today, I received a solicitation to subscribe to the New York Times, with a pre-paid envelope.

    I am going to use their envelope to mail back a letter telling them they can go fuck themselves, but I first need to calm down and write something really scathing, not just the first thing that comes to the top of my head.

  33. 33.

    clay

    @Mnemosyne: No need to be scathing, I don’t think; just bluntly honest about why you are rejecting it. Also, list what they could do to earn your trust back.

    “I will not subscribe due to [e-mails, foundation, etc.]. If the Times refuses to normalize Trump’s behavior and starts casting the critical and investigative eye towards him that he requires, then I will gladly change my mind.”

    Keep in mind that no one with any power is likey to see it, so a polite request to pass the note along to Editorial couldn’t hurt.

  34. 34.

    Kropadope

    17 intelligence agencies unanimously determine that Russia is trying to interfere in our elections. The Democratic President tried to bring Republicans and Democrats together to take a stand against it, the Republicans say no. Nothing gets said until after the election.
    The FBI director sends a letter to Congress stating that a computer they found, one that doesn’t belong to Hillary Clinton, might MAYBE have emails on it that could have a bearing on an investigation into Hillary’s emails that has already found no criminal wrongdoing while going through a far larger portion of emails.
    The Republicans unilaterally bring this to the public. “Bigger than Watergate!!!” they declare. The “liberal” media (pfft…) elevates this to the top of the headlines for the entire weekend before the election. When it is discovered that Hillary has no emails on the computer, the matter is quietly dropped.
    I don’t know what’s scarier; the Republican penchant for lying, the partisan abetment of treason by Republicans, or the way the media lets them get away with it because “both sides.”
    We’re fucked.

  35. 35.

    jl

    @Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the info. What a mess.

    This whole spectacle is sickening. What is worse is that I think most of those in that region who voted for Trump won’t care until he comes with Ryan and company to gut them like fresh trout.

  37. 37.

    Corner Stone

    @Kropadope:

    I don’t know what’s scarier; the Republican penchant for lying, the partisan abetment of treason by Republicans, or the way the media lets them get away with it because “both sides.”
    We’re fucked.

    Well then I guess it’s a good thing we did not elect HRC as she would be worse for the country and the D party than any other outcome, eh?

  38. 38.

    jl

    @Mnemosyne:

    ‘ So in the mail today, I received a solicitation to subscribe to the New York Times, with a pre-paid envelope. ‘

    Write the love note on the smallest brick you can find that will fit in the envelope.

  39. 39.

    seaboogie

    @Corner Stone: Strongly suspect that we’ll see a never-ending series of Presidential “rallies” – what’s the German term for “all hail”, again…?

  41. 41.

    jl

    @clay:

    I myself would have a hard time finding the fine line between scathing and just bluntly honest.
    The space between polite, direct and rude are very close in this case.

  42. 42.

    Kropadope

    @Kropadope: I voted for HRC, donated to her campaign, and asked everyone who would listen to register to vote and vote for her too. Yeah, I said she had the potential to be a disaster for the party and she was. She could’ve been a disaster for the party if she got elected too but, as is well-documented here, I still determined the bigger risk was with Trump.

  46. 46.

    seaboogie

    @jl: Oh, you jest – but the Trump ball-cap Xmas ornament introduced at $149 is now $99 for one, $79 ea for two, and $59 ea for three. I’m gonna need a bigger tree, I tells ya.

  49. 49.

    jl

    @seaboogie: See? Great Deelz!! Except you don’t do that salute, that is old hat. You throw your wallet towards der Grosse Dealmeister. You won’t be needing it anyway.

  51. 51.

    jl

    @lamh36: Will Perez kick ass and yell? Otherwise i am not interested in him and will contact the DNC to say so.

    If he is going to be all civil and polite and worry about corporate donors then forget him, IMHO.

    Honest question, not trolling. I don’t know much about him.

  54. 54.

    tobie

    @lamh36: That’s great but also a bummer for me as a Maryland resident. I was kind of hoping he’d run against our Republican governor Hogan. We shouldn’t have a Republican governor in this solidly blue state.

  55. 55.

    Adam L Silverman

    @efgoldman: He’s a Constitutional officer, so technically no. Same goes for the members of Congress. Basically they are read onto whatever it is they need to know in order to fulfill their Constitutional duties. I do think they still all have to do an SF 86 though, but don’t quote me on that.

    So a backbencher that isn’t a member of the Intel Committee or one of the Intel Subcommittees or Armed Services or Foreign Affairs or in the House Government Oversight or the various subcommittees for each isn’t going to get to see much, if anything. Need to know and that member of the House or Senate doesn’t need to. Occasionally you’ll get a Senator or member of the House that is still excluded even though they need to know. I’ve never heard this applied to the President.

    It is important to remember that the Intel Community will only be briefing finished, vetted intelligence product. No raw data, no raw intel, and nothing about sources and methods.

  57. 57.

    lamh36

    @tobie: the article did mention that too, but maybe they figured the internals and time wasn’t right?

    But who knows…he may announce that he will pursue Maryland gov instead.

    But I also like that we could get an Obama stalwart in the DNC that we didn’t have before. Since PBO can’t be chair, I’d love to see someone with a close tie to PBO in there…

    Not that Ellison doesn’t, but he’s a Bernie guy…and no offense, DNC has done enough for/with the Bernie folks…

    But hey…either one, I think, would be fine…right?

  59. 59.

    jl

    Our best hope that Trump is a deluded fool who will need to seek approval wherever he can get it. I will dream a dream.
    Trump proclaimed, seemingly proudly, that he and Obama have kind of struck up a kinship (whatever.. I know…who knows what is going on in his head…) I kind of believe it. Trump can see in Obama lots of things that he fancies himself to be. Trump is now a winner, and by proxy he can claim he beat Obama. so the hard feelings can be forgotten now.

    So, Trump’s audience promptly and very graciously booed him. There are goofy wingnuts running around saying they will gun for him if he doesn’t go 1000 percent on the wall and the deportations and the Muslin ban. Trump won’t get any love there unless he is willing to be a slave to his campaign act for 4 years. That is far too long for one act for a guy attuned to a WWE and Reality Show attention span.

    So, where else? Ryan and GOP? That crowd of murderous loons? They have no respect to give anyone, certainly not even enough for themselves. They want to knee cap him for Pence Thug-life anyway.

    If Trump can steer away from outrages that forece the Dems to completely declare him off limits in every way, he will get respect and love from the likes of Sanders, and Schumer and Democrats.

    It will be chaotic political trainwreck of epic proportions. Oligarch Rex at State, and the fairly sane flock of generals Trump has assembled may be decisive enough to keep him, or murderous loons like Bolton from blowing up the world.

    OK, that bizarre fantasy might calm me down for a few days and I’ll pop again to see if I can take the daily news.

  61. 61.

    jl

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    ” Aggressive head of the Civil Rights Division ”

    OK, thanks.My memory duly jogged. I think he needs to be aggressive on the economy too. Talking about how ‘the jobs won’t come back’ will not cut it. But aggressive! Good. Will study up on Perez.
    Actually I think it is wrong to say that none of the good jobs can come back, but I am ducking out of here in a few days, and will skip any spat that bold statement might create. Krugman is usually right but wrong on that (Noble prize winner whiffs it on a topic he won Nobel Memorial Prize for, Sad!) Maybe he will get over his grief and bother to look at the data and think it though soon.

  62. 62.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @lamh36: Obama as DNC is so below him. He can and will do amazing things. DNC chair is not an amazing thing. DNC should be a a functionary who does good work. For the future, the Castro brothers, Gillibrand, the dude from the MO senate campaign, Kamala Harris… We have people.

  63. 63.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @jl: I don’t think we need a yeller. We need an organizer, a planner, a recruiter. That’s my two bit idea of what a DNC chair should do. From what I understand the job is pretty much whatever the next occupant can make of it.

  65. 65.

    mike in dc

    Studied government contracts in law school under Professors Schooner and Yukins, using the Nash textbooks. GWU has pretty much THE government contracts program out there. Obviously the Defense Acquisition process has its own distinct processes and methodologies. But knowing how extensive government contract spending is, I always laugh whenever some Republican pol asserts that the government doesn’t create jobs.

  66. 66.

    jl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: OK, he doesn’t need to yell all the time. But Democrats have been lying down and taking shit. I am not, as people here well know, a big HRC fan, but man did it bother me to watch her apologize for the email BS. She should have told them to go to hell and talked issues.

    We need an organizer, planner and recruiter, who knows how to raise hell and kick ass when needed. How’s that?

  67. 67.

    Mnemosyne

    @jl:

    I’ll put it this way: the specific factory jobs that those people are pining for ain’t never coming back.

    However, there could well be new, maybe even better jobs in new industries like renewable energy or high-speed rail, but Congress and the red states refuse to invest in them. Remember, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker turned away a factory that wanted to build in Wisconsin because it was going to produce trains for high-speed rail, and he didn’t want high-speed rail.

  68. 68.

    jl

    @Omnes Omnibus: Please double check the tense of the verb in that comment. I was saying that I think he will need to be (if I need to put in the detail) aggressive on the economy. I didn’t accuse him of being dilatory and obstinate in not addressing that in his civil rights post.

    I’ll study up on him and keep an open mind.

  71. 71.

    Ruckus

    @jl:

    The space between polite, direct and rude are very close in this case.

    For me that line would be so thin that chip makers would be knocking on my door to learn how to make a line that narrow. They haven’t figured it out yet.

  72. 72.

    jl

    @Mnemosyne: I think you are too pessimistic, but you have a good point. and I think Democratic leaders must be very aggressive on the point you make.

    But if the US could tear itself away from letting corporations lead it by the nose on trade and IP, and we went back to realistic world trade negotiations (as opposed to BS regional deals like TPP and the ‘AFTAs) and reformed international financial system to keep it off a ridiculously highly leverage offshore dollar reserve system, international trade would rebalance. Sure, political fantasy, but at this point, not any more so than high-speed rail,, or for that matter, potable water, or breathable air.

  76. 76.

    Bobby D

    My position just got coded with a DAWIA contracting level II cert requirement. Haven’t started the DAU modules for the cert yet, have 2 years to finish it. But, I’ve taken DAU courses in the past to act as COR. The DAU course material works better than Ambien.

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    @jl:
    Mems is right. None of the specific jobs that the trumpeters want to come back, steel and coal are coming back. The world has moved on and those jobs are way too expensive on our shores to fit into the world economy. They were mostly crappy jobs anyway. Ever been in a foundry? I have and it is a sucky job. Never mined coal but I’ve seen it in videos and it sucks. What made them good jobs was that one didn’t need a college or technical degree to do a lot of them, you learned on the job and by the time you had learned the company had invested money in you so unless you were a fuck up deluxe, you had a job. But they were (and are) dirty jobs with huge risks and disabilities. Companies in the US have a problem and that is that we have a rather large contingent of lawyers and we have this crazy notion (OK some of the citizens have this crazy notion) that one shouldn’t have to die or be disfigured earning a paycheck. Until the rest of the world is unwilling to tolerate jobs that have these risks, we, and other countries that also think a job should not be deadly just for showing up will not be able to afford them. Now that I’ve said all that, we do produce steel in this country and so do some countries in Europe. But these are specialty steels and not done in the quantities or at the price that the old huge steel mills made or offshore mills make. Coal? It’s no longer necessary and because it’s a horrible fuel, it will go away, much sooner than later.
    IOW these jobs are not coming back. If politicians would tell the truth (like Clinton DID) and people were smart enough to understand it, we could move on. Most politicians won’t and too many aren’t so we are stuck until either enough people get struck by lightning or whatever it takes to get anything through their thick heads or they just die off. Unfortunately we keep raising more stupid.

  78. 78.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Bobby D: Yeah, there was interest in me doing the COR cert course. Until no one could figure out how to get me registered as a term appointment under the Intergovernmental Personnel Act.

  79. 79.

    Kropadope

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’ve been here a decade without being accused of trolling. During the primaries, when I was making more sincere arguments for MONTHS prior to that, the same clique of people just lied. trolled me, and threw red herrings. I will own up to my trollish response, but will continue to assert that I feel vindicated in doing so considering that I tolerated trolling by the likes of you for months.

    So, your lying and trolling for months before and afterwards, what consequences were there for those? Oh, right, none, because trolling is OK if you troll the right people.

  82. 82.

    Ruckus

    @Bobby D:
    @Adam L Silverman:
    I’ve never worked on the procurement side but I have worked as a contractor on parts and projects. Some of the requirements on the contracting side requires one to believe that no one, anywhere in the procurement chain has ever spoken, written or had any lessons in any language spoken on this earth and has never set foot on the planet.

  84. 84.

    Kropadope

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Excuse me. I was not the one trying to rehash this. I was commenting on the different ethical standards of Republicans and Democrats and the low standards the media has for advancing innuendo about the Democrats and especially Hillary. Then Corner Stone responds with the usual false BS.

    You same trolls keep trolling. And just like the crybaby Republican trolls you so closely resemble, you can’t tolerate when one of your targets tries to defend him/herself.

    ETA: I shouldn’t have to apologize every time someone instigates, nor should I stand by silently as I’m falsely accused of whatever. I fucking get it. You don’t like me. Maybe you’re the one who needs to get over it.

  86. 86.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    That link at #76? It goes double for you.

    You don’t seem to have realized yet what the con was. It went like this:

    Hillary Clinton is corrupt and untrustworthy, so it doesn’t matter which one of them you vote for.

    You fell for the con. The fact that you still believe the con even after seeing the results is a testament to how well crafted it was over the course of 25 years by the Republicans, who then handed it over to the Russians so the Russians could seed it on the left.

    But a beautifully crafted and plausible con is still a con.

  89. 89.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne: the fact that you still believe I believe the con even after I never said anything of the sort goes to show what lying troll you are.

    I have repeatedly made the case against Hillary and the DNC rigging the primary right here. I have, in fact, made a case against pretty much every Hillary scandal du jour that the media has managed to cook up. Yet, you continue to assert that I’m buying into them. Clearly you either can’t read, are a liar, or let snap judgments of a person cloud your perception of that person forever and ever after.

    You failed last time I issued this challenge. Try again. Show me one instance of me accusing Hillary of corruption.

  90. 90.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    I will repeat your words from the previous thread:

    Democrats put up a weak slate and were at so many levels pushing for Hillary to be the only choice. If you even wanted to consider an alternative to Hillary you were a misogynist and, somehow more still, a racist.

    You now claim that, when you wrote this, you totally didn’t mean that the corrupt Democrats cleared the path for Hillary and prevented better, stronger candidates from running. You just meant that they did it because they, like, totally suck at their jobs.

    And yet I notice that the underlying belief that Hillary was a bad candidate never changes, only your explanation for why you think that. That, my friend, is the sign that the propaganda worked on you: you still think she was a bad candidate because the propaganda got into your subconscious, but you can’t quite decide on an explanation because the reason you believe it is not logical. In that case, the natural process of the brain is to come up with a new explanation when the previous one is disproved.

    Let’s try this explanation: Hillary Clinton was an extremely strong candidate for president. In fact, she was so strong of a candidate that it took direct interference by a foreign power plus massive voter suppression by Republicans to take her down, and even then she still won the popular vote by 3 million.

    Please explain why, based on the actual facts that have emerged before and after the election, your explanation that she was a weak candidate is more plausible than mine.

  91. 91.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne: Not before you explain to me how what I said equates to corruption.

    There is nothing unethical about endorsing a candidate, declining to run for office, or refusing to consider alternatives. The Dems were stupid and prejudiced, not corrupt.

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    There is nothing unethical about endorsing a candidate, declining to run for office, or refusing to consider alternatives. The Dems were stupid and prejudiced, not corrupt.

    They were “stupid” to run a candidate so strong that the only way to defeat her was through unprecedented interference by a foreign government, and even then she still won the popular vote?

    Like I said, the fact that you’re clinging to your view of Hillary as a weak candidate despite all of the contrary evidence says that your view of her is not based in fact and logic.

  93. 93.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    Facts and logic be damned I say!
    We’ve seen this before, I believe that it goes something like this: “Because, nothing, nothing, now shut up!” I seem to recall having these types of arguments when I was 4 or 5. They didn’t work then, they never got any stronger, more logical, smarter, or better. This one is a strong practitioner of this shout louder school of debate. I wonder why you waste your time.

  94. 94.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne: She was running for President under the same party banner of a successful President who remained the most popular politician in the country. The economy was improving, good news every month. She had the wind at her back and still managed to lose.

    Sure, she almost won and probably would have if not for actual corrupt actions by the FBI, the media, and Russia. But it shouldn’t have been that close and I honestly believe that 95% of Democrats would’ve outperformed her.

    ETA: She may be the first candidate I ever saw for any office where I didn’t know a single person IRL who liked her. I knew a few who decided to vote for her after the primary. But “she’s better than Trump” was obviously not enough to get her across the finish line.

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    Sure, she almost won and probably would have if not for actual corrupt actions by the FBI, the media, and Russia. But it shouldn’t have been that close and I honestly believe that 95% of Democrats would’ve outperformed her.

    Oh, sweetie. You and your irrational beliefs are totally adorable. I love how you hand-wave away massive and unprecedented corruption and Republican collusion with a foreign government. So cute.

    Tell you what: name me just three (3) of those Democrats who would have beaten Trump. Hint: since Bernie couldn’t manage to beat Hillary, he by definition would have been unable to beat Trump.

  96. 96.

    Mnemosyne

    @efgoldman:

    Don’t forget, Joe Biden, the Senator from MBNA, doesn’t have all of those nasty Wall Street connections that Hillary does. And he certainly didn’t support TPP, amirite?

  97. 97.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne: First of all, being the most popular among Democrats is not the same thing as being most popular among the population at large. Besides which, the fact that a backbencher like Bernie was even competitive with Hillary should show you how weak she was and how negligent the Democrats were for not providing a real alternative.

    @Mnemosyne: I supported the TPP. So, you continue to bat 0.000 as far as asserting what I believe.

  98. 98.

    Это курам на смех

    @Mnemosyne: @Mnemosyne: I trust you realize that your strongly worded missive to the NYT will be read — or I should say briefly glanced at — by a low-wage clerical worker who will immediately drop it in the recycling bin with all the other non-subscriptions?

    I have the same urge to communicate my reasons for not subscribing, but don’t know how they would ever get through to anyone of consequence.

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    Besides which, the fact that a backbencher like Bernie was even competitive with Hillary should show you how weak she was and how negligent the Democrats were for not providing a real alternative.

    Wow, I thought you would at least be honest enough to give one name. I guess not.

    And given Tad Devine’s connections to Putin, are you sure you want to pursue that whole line of thought about Bernie? I have to say, in retrospect I’m a little curious about how he managed to run a whole campaign based on donations that were too small to have to be reported individually to the FEC. Not to mention the weird persistence of the Berniebros, who repeatedly disrupted the party’s convention in prime time.

    And their anger was based on what? Based on emails that were stolen by the Russians and released.

    As I said in the thread below, you got played like a fiddle from start to finish, and you still refuse to see it.

  101. 101.

    Kropadope

    @efgoldman: Whatever. For all I care the Dems can keep losing if most of them believe they were bereft of plausible presidential candidates save for one brave willed savior, beloved of the masses, Hillary Clinton (where has the Rodham been? I miss it)

  103. 103.

    Kropadope

    @Mnemosyne:

    I have to say, in retrospect I’m a little curious about how he managed to run a whole campaign based on donations that were too small to have to be reported individually to the FEC

    The difference between not having to be reported and not being reported is vast. I don’t know about other small donors, but I do not donate anonymously. Yeah, this type of thing should be audited. Maybe it is, I don’t know. But you’re actually insinuating wrongdoing. Have you seen any evidence that Bernie’s small donations are some form of structured money laundering?

  104. 104.

    gene108

    @Ruckus:

    But they were (and are) dirty jobs with huge risks and disabilities.

    Part of me thinks that is part of the nostalgic appeal. Doing those jobs made you tough and manly. You were rugged. You came back from work, with grime on your hands and maybe face, like a manly man.

    Look at pick-up truck ads, they celebrate jobs men do that require sweat and getting dirty, as if that is a superior, more manly, career choice to wusses, who sit behind a desk all day.

  105. 105.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kropadope:

    Have I seen evidence? Not yet. But given the fact that there are Russian fingerprints on everyone in this election season except Hillary Clinton, are you truly confident that an audit would show no Russian meddling in the financing of Bernie’s campaign?

    ETA: Note that I am NOT saying that this is something that Bernie would have been aware of or agreed to. This would have been something done by the Russians to prop him up without his knowledge.

  106. 106.

    Bostonian

    Ah, the DAU. Brings me back. Certified level 3 here, and a CPL. Worked for a major defense contractor. I kinda liked government logistics. It’s complicated. I think Performance-Based Logistics is a great idea.

    It seems there’s a great deal of tension in the process. Well-meaning folks are trying to build in safeguards to keep the government from being ripped off, and of course the contractors are going balls-out to rip off the government. In proposal teams we called the government “Charlie.”

    When people try to reassure me about the Cheeto Benito, they say the government is like an aircraft carrier, takes a long time to turn it about. Certainly, the contracting and logistics part does. But on the other hand it’s ever so much easier to break something than it is to build something.

  107. 107.

    Another Scott

    @Mnemosyne: Dead thread, but…

    The FEC has many / most of my individual political contributions listed in their Individual Search page, some going back 15 years. None of my Bernie contributions are listed, but my ones to O’Malley are.

    It’s not necessarily nefarious. Maybe he simply didn’t have people assigned to do the work. Kinda like him not being able / willing to release his federal tax returns – maybe he just wasn’t competent enough to round up the paperwork. Kinda like his fantastical economic growth numbers didn’t make any sense once you did the work of crunching the numbers. There didn’t have to be any nefarious intent – simply a lack of understanding of the system and how things work would do it.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  108. 108.

    Eugene in Eugene

    @Bobby D: Not sure if your position was upgraded from Level I to Level II or if it’s a completely new code, but since you’ve previously taken DAU courses, look at what DAU and your agency/department actually requires for certification and prerequisites for courses. It’d be silly to retake ACQ 101 if you don’t have to, particularly since ACQ 201 is taught with the assumption that it’s been a while since your last acquisition class.

  109. 109.

    Mnemosyne

    @Another Scott:

    Again, please note that I’m NOT saying that this is something Bernie would have known or really had any way to find out about. But given all of the more complex fuckery the Russians did, that kind of secret donation (secret even from the beneficiary) would be child’s play.

  111. 111.

    Stan

    @gene108:

    Part of me thinks that is part of the nostalgic appeal. Doing those jobs made you tough and manly. You were rugged. You came back from work, with grime on your hands and maybe face, like a manly man.

    Uh, no. They really are fucking hard jobs and there is understandable pride in doing them. There is pride in doing anything that most people could not do. Have some respect please.

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