Taking war profiteering to new depths

Barack Obama has named his successor to Chuck Hagel, the lackluster Secretary of Defense. Now Obama wants Ashton Carter, a clear indication that he means to do absolutely nothing to curb the obscene, obese, offensive military budget in his final two years in office.

Reassuring everyone that these high-profit big-ticket weapons systems are very important for everyone who matters*
*rich elite owners who want to grab fat hunks of your federal taxes yet again

Carter's specialty is spending as much as possible on as many capital-intensive projects as he can remotely justify. This is nothing new, however, his expertise in procurement is not an expertise in saving taxpayer money, but rather an expertise in draining the military budget away from labor-intensive expenses and pouring it massively into big-ticket private enterprise war profiteering boondoggles. Lies to justify that seem Just Fine to him.

In a classic case of corrupt revolving door phenomenon, Carter went from private enterprise weaponry investment advisor (for Global Technology Partners) to the big buyer role for DoD, starting in 2009. He has been the overseer of well more than a $trillion in spending. Your money, Pentagon weaponry, war profiteering at its most brazen.

This would be a great time for Republicans to show how much they really oppose waste, fraud, and abuse. Halt the nomination. Of course the Conflict Industry (those who profit in money, status or power from destructive conflict) need someone like Carter in the driver's seat at the Pentagon in order to maximize milking the American taxpayer, even if it means that driver risks plunging the US economy straight over the next fiscal cliff. Where there are profits to be made, why worry?

We the People are really busy. We are trying to finally put a halt to police murdering unarmed people. We are trying to stop climate chaos. We are trying to end the fracking that is ruining enormous riches of pure groundwater across the country. We are sort of overwhelmed and we don't need this. We are hoping for some relief, so it is especially disturbing in this moment to see Obama usher in another bloody war profiteer into the agency that wastes more money every year than the GDP of many a nation.