Defense Contractors Are Taking Over The Pentagon & Biden Halts Arctic Drilling Leases

Via America’s Lawyer: President Biden continues to spin the revolving door between defense contractors and the Pentagon. Also, President Biden suspends oil drilling leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Mike Papantonio and Farron Cousins discuss more.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

President Biden is packing his defense department with people from the defense industry, a sign that, that not much has really changed in American policy. Right. I'll tell you what, this, this story, it takes me back to the Clinton era. All right. Let's, and I wish I could say it wasn't Obama, but he did the same thing.

He did.

It's almost that neoliberal thing, isn't it?

Right, it really is.

Neoliberal means we're joined at the hip with Wall Street, where you used to be a Democrat. You used to be a liberal and you weren't enamored with the idea that we're, we're pumping billions of dollars into the weapons industry. That's exactly what's going on here. Raytheon, Boeing, all, McDonnell Douglas, this is a, this is a payday for them, isn't it?

Right. General Dynamics on that list too. And you have all these other smaller consultancy firms. You have Wall Street itself tied to the weapons industry. All of them have a seat at the table.

Now.

With the Pentagon.

They did last term.

They, they did.

Trump.

Yeah.

They did the term before that.

Exactly, because this is just how it works now. And I'm afraid too many people have come to accept that well, these people know it best. No, they don't. What these people know is making a lot of money selling a lot of things that blow up. And what we're doing is we're blowing up civilians overseas. We, we know that. Reports have done that. I'm pretty sure we've done plenty of segments on that.

Oh, we've done half a dozen stories.

You know, 90% of the time they miss their targets. So we know where the money is going and we know who the money is killing. And these are people going about their daily lives.

Let's add another feature to it. Here's where it really gets interesting. When we think of the defense industry, we think a Northrop. We think of McDonnell Douglas. We think of Raytheon. We think of the folks that build weapons that kill people all over the world. Right. Now there's a new development, Google, Microsoft, and again, Amazon. Okay. They're in the, they're now moving into the, the favorites of the DOD, the department of defense. Talk about that just a minute.

Right. These, these companies have been competing for a long time for these lucrative contracts. Let us handle all your cloud computing. Let us handle all your software needs. Let us handle any kind of digital aspect of war, which is where it's all moving. Let us handle cyber security. And they're getting so much money, billions and billions per year, from the defense industry that yes, you do have to classify Google and Amazon and Microsoft as defense contractors at this point, because so much money comes from there.

Farron, how did we get to the point in this country where a guy, a person that calls themselves a liberal. Okay. I, I identify as a liberal, where we're more lined up with the weapons industry than probably, you know, than everybody else. Understand that's what's happening here. And it seems to be okay. You know, let's rattle sabers with Russia, let's start a new cold war with Russia. Let's go after China. That would scare the bejesus out of most liberals who have read Howard Zinn.

Yeah.

You've interviewed Howard Zinn. Right. So let's talk about that just a second. How have we gotten here? Got about 30 seconds.

You, you, always have these political realignments, and I think that's what's happening. The defense industry right now thinks that the Democratic party is more lucrative for them. So they pump more money in, they send their people to DC, they get them appointed to these positions and it does become more lucrative for them.

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