{"id":335233,"date":"2017-11-16T09:27:37","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T08:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-adds-to-washingtons-swamp-consortiumnews\/"},"modified":"2017-11-16T09:27:37","modified_gmt":"2017-11-16T08:27:37","slug":"trump-adds-to-washingtons-swamp-consortiumnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-adds-to-washingtons-swamp-consortiumnews\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Adds to Washington\u2019s \u2018Swamp\u2019 \u2013 Consortiumnews"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p><strong>Exclusive:<\/strong> President Trump\u2019s vow to \u201cdrain the swamp\u201d was just one more empty promise as he adds to the muck with military contractors in key Pentagon jobs and other industry lobbyists at regulatory posts, says Jonathan Marshall.<\/p>\n<p>By Jonathan Marshall<\/p>\n<p>In the Famous-Last-Words department, this Dec. 12, 2016 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-usa-trump-lockheed\/trump-attack-on-lockheed-martin-foreshadows-war-on-defense-industry-idUSKBN1411HF\">headline from Reuters<\/a> surely ranks among the worst: \u201cTrump attack on Lockheed Martin foreshadows war on defense industry.\u201d When it comes to military contractors, President Trump surely prefers to make love, not war.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20728\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/F-35A_flight_cropped.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/lazy-load\/images\/1x1.trans.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/F-35A_flight_cropped-300x216.jpg\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20728\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"216\"  \/><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20728\" src=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/F-35A_flight_cropped-300x216.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"216\"  \/><\/noscript><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lockheed-Martin\u2019s F-35 war plane.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Not only does he seek a <a href=\"https:\/\/fas.org\/sgp\/crs\/natsec\/R45013.pdf\">$51 billion increase<\/a> in the base military budget, Trump is putting top defense industry insiders in charge of spending <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/views\/2017\/10\/10\/how-military-industrial-complex-preys-troops\">more than $300 billion a year<\/a> in contract awards to private corporations.<\/p>\n<p>Those insiders <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/whos-really-driving-nuclear-weapons-production\/\">include<\/a> former General Dynamics board member <a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/blogs\/donald-trump-administration\/2017\/01\/james-mattis-defense-disclosures-233331\">James Mattis<\/a>, now Secretary of Defense; former Boeing Senior Vice President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/04\/01\/business\/patrick-shanahan-pentagon-nominee.html\">Patrick Shanahan<\/a>, now Deputy Secretary of Defense; Raytheon\u2019s former top lobbyist, <a href=\"http:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/defense\/345619-trumps-army-secretary-pick-made-over-15m-at-raytheon\">Mark Esper<\/a>, now Secretary of the Army; and former Textron CEO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/pentagon\/2017\/06\/28\/ellen-lord-textron-system-ceo-nominated-for-undersecretary-of-at-l\/\">Ellen Lord<\/a>, now Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, a post that supervises all Pentagon weapons procurement.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, yes, let\u2019s not forget Lockheed Martin Corporation, subject of the Reuters headlines and the nation\u2019s biggest military contractor, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lockheedmartin.com\/content\/dam\/lockheed\/data\/corporate\/documents\/2017-proxy-statement.pdf\">annual sales<\/a> of nearly $50 billion. Trump chose its former consultant, Heather Wilson, to become Secretary of the Air Force.<\/p>\n<p>Lockheed Martin paid Wilson, a former Republican congresswoman from New Mexico, nearly a quarter million dollars for advice on winning an extension of its contract to run Sandia National Laboratories. Following that campaign, the company had to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/federal-eye\/wp\/2015\/08\/24\/after-allegations-that-it-lobbied-with-federal-money-to-block-competition-lockheed-martin-agrees-to-pay-almost-5-million\/?utm_term=.b0b95d1fa300\">pay the feds $4.7 million to settle charges<\/a> that it improperly used government money to lobby senior U.S. officials.<\/p>\n<p>Now Wilson is overseeing the biggest weapons program in U.S. history \u2014 the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2016\/02\/01\/feeding-the-military-industrial-complex\/\">a notoriously trouble-plagued jet<\/a> with a total estimated program cost of <em>more than $1 trillion<\/em>. Who makes it? Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lockheedmartin.com\/us\/products\/littoral-combat-ship.html\">makes<\/a> the equally <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2016\/12\/05\/new-navy-ship-leaking-tax-dollars\/\">notorious<\/a> Littoral Combat Ship for the U.S. Navy.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More Military-Industrial Complex<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Last month, the Trump&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2017\/11\/15\/trump-adds-to-washingtons-swamp\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Exclusive: President Trump\u2019s vow to \u201cdrain the swamp\u201d was just one more empty promise as he adds to the muck with military contractors in key Pentagon jobs and other industry lobbyists at regulatory posts, says Jonathan Marshall. By Jonathan Marshall In the Famous-Last-Words department, this Dec. 12, 2016 headline from Reuters surely ranks among the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-335233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2524"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}