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Congress passes $817 billion relief package for struggling Pentagon

Fresh off the Defense Department’s fifth failed audit, Congress came to the rescue Friday authorizing $817 billion to be pumped into the gaping black hole that is the Pentagon’s gargantuan budget. Congressional leaders hope the massive appropriation is enough to temporarily satiate the Pentagon beast and satisfy its ravenous appetite. Citing inflation concerns, officials say this year’s budget represents a nearly ten percent increase over the previous year.

“Inflation being what it is, we expect our capability and readiness to mismanage a shit ton of funding to increase as well,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. “Projections indicate losses due to waste, fraud, abuse and criminality to grow dramatically in fiscal year 2023.”

Austin’s comments appear to align with the results of the most recent defense department audit where 1,600 auditors failed to account for 61 percent of the Pentagon’s assets. Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord described the failed audit as a “teachable moment.”

“I would not say that we flunked. The process is important for us to do, and it is making us get better. It is not making us get better as fast as we want,” McCord said.

Despite the waste, fraud and abuse, lawmakers cite the need to outpace foreign rivals as the driving force behind the increased funding.

“Month after month, year after year, competitors such as China are methodically pouring money and planning into upgrading and modernizing their own militaries,” croaked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “They are constantly probing new ways to expand their military, intelligence, economic, and political reach — indirectly or directly threatening American forces and our allies’ and partners’ forces.”

Indeed, China spent a whopping $230 billion last year on its defense. The figure marked a seven percent increase in probing new ways to threaten the United States over the previous year.

Additionally, the mainstream media’s favorite bogeyman and number one threat to American democracy Russia has announced it will spend $84 billion on defense in 2023, a 40 percent increase over its previously allocated amount. At its present pace, Russia could overtake what the United States spends on Ukrainian defense as early as 2024.

To be sure, with all the perceived threats looming out there, Congress can’t shovel money fast enough into the bottomless abyss that is the United States Defense budget. Additionally, members of both parties and the media are having none of this talk of budget oversight or negotiated solutions to ongoing conflicts. “Don’t speak of diplomacy and things that don’t explode, you Russian stooge,” warn the paid experts and former intelligence officials on MSNBC and at the Washington Post.

Buzzfeed News obtains dossier revealing identity of Florida man urinated on at festival concert

Buzzfeed News is reporting it has obtained documents related to an incident where the lead singer of the band Brass Against allegedly urinated on a Florida man on stage at a recent concert.

Reports indicate the documents, referred to by some as the Brass Dossier, have been widely circulated around Washington D.C. and among journalists. Buzzfeed plans to publish the dossier as soon as it conducts a thorough investigation of claims made in the document.

“No doubt Buzzfeed journalists will go through the dossier with a fine-tooth comb,” said former Buzzfeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, now at the New York Times. “When I was at the helm, our policy was to double and triple check our anonymous source regarding the veracity of any allegations. This usually involved verifying the source didn’t have his fingers crossed when he gave us the information. As a final act of due diligence, we would make the source cross his heart and hope to die. At that point we generally felt pretty confident about releasing information to the public.”

Much speculation has gone into the identity of the Florida man. Witnesses claim the individual was over six feet tall, with skin of a Sunkist orange hue, and a breathtaking coiffure that flowed like golden rain water.

Witnesses say, at the conclusion of the show, the man was hustled away by a stern looking group of men in suits and sunglasses.

Additional reporting by MSNBC reveals the lead singer of Brass Against, Sophia Urista, may have connections to Russian intelligence. “Sources indicate this may not be the first time this Urista has served up some urine at the behest of the Kremlin,” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported.

If the history doesn’t fit, you must stealth edit it

For some of our most respected and revered media institutions, history has become increasingly uncooperative and uncharitable toward the narratives they’re trying to peddle these days. A number of media outlets are finding it necessary to edit the stories of days gone by to make them more in keeping with the present day. After all, why update your thinking or try to maintain some semblance of consistency with regard to past events, when you can just go back and change the way you reported or interpreted those events at the time?

Following a recent Salon article that blasted Senator Tom Cotton for allegedly misleading the public about his service as a U.S. Army Ranger, some media outlets could barely keep up with the stealth editing necessary to make their current reporting more accurate and less hypocritical. Cotton graduated from Army Ranger training school and earned the honor to wear the Ranger pin, but he never actually served with the unit. Up until a week ago, it was quite common to refer to these service members as Rangers, but after the Salon attack piece, media outlets had some work to do to change all that. Newsweek, not wanting to be left out of the media pile-on, used the Salon article to launch an attack of its own on Cotton. However, Cotton’s staff notified Newsweek that it had referred in 2015 to the first two female graduates of the training program as Rangers. (So had Congress, by the way.) Newsweek went back and edited the article, relieving the barrier-breaking female graduates of their Army Ranger status. Now the publication was free to attack Cotton without appearing to engage in any double standards. It must have felt pretty liberating to the Newsweek editors to throw two female Army Rangers under the bus just so they could go after a high-profile Senator from the wrong team.

Indeed, fickle history doesn’t always cooperate when the media sets about attacking a public figure for partisan or ideological reasons. Back in October, during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the then nominee was attacked by Senator Mazie Hirono for using the term “sexual preference.” Unbeknownst to nearly everyone on the planet, the term had apparently become “offensive and outdated.” Despite evidence the term had been in recent common usage by the very same news outlets and journalists who now criticized Barrett, the media rushed to brand the term as offensive. According to MSNBC producer, Kyle Griffin, “Sexual preference,” a term used by Justice Barrett, is offensive and outdated. The term implies sexuality is a choice. It is not. News organizations should not repeat Justice Barrett’s words without providing that important context.” Good thing MSNBC provided that impartial and objective context, because the folks over at Merriam-Webster hadn’t seen fit to update the definition of the term until the brou-ha-ha erupted. The dictionary people quickly edited the term’s definition, doing its part to add legitimacy to the media attacks on Barrett.

One of the most egregious examples of stealth editing was brought to light last September when it was discovered that the New York Times had quietly memory-holed the core claim of its 1619 Project, the celebrated history series which garnered a Pulitzer Prize for its creator Nikole Hannah-Jones. Initially, the piece attempted to reframe history in a manner that belied the facts. When leading historians pointed out these errors of fact, the Times edited the piece without notice, dropping the core claim of the project. Additionally, as if to assert that the public was suffering from some kind of Mandela Effect delusion, Nikole Hannah-Jones publicly asserted that the project had never made the claim to begin with. Attempts to rewrite or reframe history for a present and future audience are common. It’s how history is recorded. But time travelling in a digital space and changing history in an effort to conceal the fact that you ever misled or misstated facts about history…are you f-ing serious? It feels like trying to create a simulation within a simulation. One day journalists and historians may look back on this time as a sort of dark ages, when authors went to such extreme lengths to conceal, alter and meddle with the facts of history, that the true story of what really happened is rendered indiscernible. In any event, it will probably be one really hot mess for someone to disentangle.

Facing irrelevance and unemployment, resistance media to pursue a “What if Trump had won?” project called Man on the High Escalator

Now that a Trump coup in January seems unlikely, some members of the media are scrambling to figure out what they’re going to do for the next four years. Journalists and commentators at HuffPost, Buzzfeed, Vox and MSNBC face the very real threat of extinction now that they’ve defeated fascism with their panicked reporting and merciless tweeting.

But what if they didn’t topple the dictator? What if in some parallel reality Trump prevailed and the United States is still suffering under the capricious dictates of a ruthless authoritarian? That’s the premise of a new television series being shopped around by a group of intrepid journos who are currently out of things to lose their shit over.

“Man on the High Escalator should allow us to continue cashing in on Trump hysteria for years to come,” said one reporter connected to the project. “It’s pretty much going to be nap time at the White House for the foreseeable future. Anyway, criticizing Biden will get your Twitter account locked, as we’ve seen with the New York Post. So Man on the High Escalator gives us a creative outlet to continue to cultivate a high level of Trump induced anxiety.”

The story will focus on a band of scrappy resistance journalists, forced by a repressive Trump regime to confine their words and reporting to widely viewed social media platforms, popular cable news television programs and freely available digital media websites. Their stories will shine a light of truth on the Trump administration’s brutal authoritarian crackdown against any whiff of dissent, including the arrest of demonstrators who are often detained for hours and released without charges.

Fighting fascism can be a lonely business. Especially when your movement can rely only on the support of former Democratic establishment officials in exile, a number of the world’s largest and most powerful tech companies, and many current and former senior officials of the national security state. Yet somehow these meagre few heroes of the underground take up the fight day after day and aim their Twitter fury at the heart of the tyrant.

Look for Man on the High Escalator, coming soon to a streaming service near you.

Steve Kornacki spotted forecasting at a Starbucks drive-thru menu board

Since the 2020 presidential election was called for Joe Biden on Saturday, Steve Kornacki’s fortunes have sunk like a stone. No longer needed to man the electoral college big board for MSNBC, Kornacki was recently spotted holding forth in a New Jersey Starbucks drive-thru. Witnesses report the popular cable news prognosticator was pointing and gesturing excitedly at the drive-thru menu board for patrons as they waited in line to place orders.

“He was waving his arms around wildly and manically explaining how the vanilla latte was maintaining a slight advantage over the white chocolate mocha. At times he seemed to pause and cup his ear as if someone were speaking to him through an earpiece, but I didn’t see anything,” said one Starbucks drive-thru customer.

“After I gave my order, he pointed to it on the screen and said, ‘See Honda Odyssey’s are breaking big-time for Caramel Macchiatos. We’ve been seeing it all night. Every time these results come in from a Honda, it’s Macchiato over and over again,’” one woman reported.

“Yeah, he was scribbling notes. Then he’d clutch his hair like he was thinking really hard. Then he’d start writing down numbers next to the items on the menu board. His eyes looked really wild and there were about a half dozen empty Starbucks cups at his feet. I mean, the guy was all hopped up on math and caffeine. I was worried about him,” said an unidentified male.

A Starbucks employee later found Kornacki passed out next to the dumpster. He was taken to a local hospital where he’s recovering from exhaustion, dehydration and temporary arithmetic psychosis.

‘Word-salad’ deciphering algorithm expected in time for Trump/Biden debates

Competing teams of programmers at Google and Facebook have been working furiously in recent months to develop an algorithm capable of deciphering, in real time, the seemingly random jumbles of words that flow from the mouths of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

With the election just months away, the stakes are high as Americans have a short attention span for meandering nostalgic musings and barely comprehensible babble. Network producers are hoping to unveil the new technology at upcoming debates so the candidates’ responses to debate questions can be interpreted and transmitted to viewers in real time.

“Currently, the process of arriving at an answer to the question, ‘What the hell did he just say?’ involves dozens of journalists and commentators breaking down the candidate’s most confusing utterances and speculating for days, even weeks, about what the candidate may have meant. The process often involves mining past statements, pointing to the candidate’s record, or pulling from their personal history to provide even the faintest glimmer of clarity,” said MSNBC producer Cheryl Woodhouse.

Anders Gerital, head of senior special projects at Google expects the new technology to do away with all the needless speculation and guesswork. “Utilizing advanced algorithms, the work of hundreds of humans can be done instantaneously. Debate viewers will know in real time what the candidates are trying to say, even if the candidates don’t know themselves. The algorithm has access to the entire body of each candidate’s public pronouncements as well as all available private correspondence and decision-making. It will rely heavily on communications from a time when each candidate was much more lucid than they are currently. The technology will be able to literally start and finish their sentences.”

The project aims to eventually create digital copies to be utilized in case the commander-in-chief becomes incapacitated, or to assist the president in carrying out his ceremonial duties.

“We’re already 85% complete toward having each man’s consciousness digitally downloaded,” added one Facebook developer. “It’s actually remarkable how little server space each man’s brain occupies. You could literally carry Donald Trump around on a thumb drive.”

That’s reassuring to campaign staff. However, most of their communication team are just delighted they will no longer have to go on Twitter or cable news and clean up after one of their bosses’ word-salad explosions.

“Half the time I feel like a clown with a pooper-scooper, following my boss around and cleaning up after he shits out yet another load of nonsense,” said one Biden staffer.

Media to the American public: If anyone’s going to deceive you, it’s going to be us

Following the release of a video by the Bloomberg campaign showing a 20 second awkward silence after Bloomberg asks his Democratic debate opponents if they’d ever started a business, many media outlets are reaffirming their position that they alone reserve the right to produce deceptive and misleading media content.

Washington Post Fact-Checker Glenn Kessler assigned four Pinocchios to the Bloomberg video stating, “Anyone who had not seen the debate could have been easily misled into thinking the other candidates stood there in stunned silence for nearly half a minute.”

Setting aside the near cosmic certainty that a stage full of political candidates could never remain silent for twenty seconds during a debate in progress, debate moderators and MSNBC producers would likewise never allow that much dead air to eat up the broadcast. Wouldn’t someone in the control room shout through a moderator’s earpiece, “Ask a fucking question!” or wouldn’t they just cut to a commercial?

But, alas, I’m just one of the naive, propaganda consuming public who doesn’t realize when he’s being misled and misinformed by sophisticated disinfo agents. For that take, Vox interviewed Cindy Otis, a former CIA analyst and disinformation expert who has authored a helpful guide for identifying disinformation called, True Or False: A CIA Analyst’s Guide to Spotting Fake News. Otis tells Vox, “Not being up front about an edited video or other changed content runs a big risk since people spread things quickly without verification.”

How thoughtful of this former employee of the CIA to use her experience and expertise to help Americans bypass the lies and deception and get straight to the facts. After all, it’s been the CIA’s mission for years to get the truth out to the American public, even if they have to secretly collude with news organizations to do it. The CIA has always been very “up front” about their propaganda and media manipulation.

In addition to illustrating the ways by which Bloomberg’s video deceives the public, HuffPost is super excited about Twitter’s plan to label tweets containing “manipulated media,” or remove tweets if they “are likely to cause harm.” It seems there were a number of Twitter users who were concerned the debate stage had been overrun by crickets after viewing the Bloomberg video. HuffPost is committed to making sure the American public gets only an objective rendering of the facts, which is why Jesselyn Cook concludes her piece by informing readers, “Bloomberg’s performance in the debate in Las Vegas – his debut at the forums – was widely panned, as he struggled to respond effectively to harsh criticisms of his record on race relations, sexual harassment complaints, economic inequality and other issues.”

Got that? If you watched the Bloomberg campaign video, you might think that he dunked hard on the rest of the field, but thankfully, HuffPost is concerned enough to let you know what really happened.

If it weren’t for much of the mainstream media portraying Bloomberg as a shrewd media manipulator, much of the American public might just take him for a tool. His campaign videos and social media are often an embarrassing attempt to seem edgy or hip. He would probably be better off just giving money directly to voters for their support instead of trying to persuade them with media ads.

Following similar media uproar over the Speaker Pelosi speech shredding video, it seems pretty clear that the only deceptive parties in both cases are the mainstream media outlets that have worked overtime to mislead the American public into believing they’re being assaulted with deceptive videos. In the dozens of pieces that have been written on these videos, none have produced any evidence that large swaths of the public are being misled. In fact, most of the public comments and tweets on these stories seem to dispute the media’s contention. Attempting to give weight to their narrative, the MSM rollout experts instead of relying on evidence. But you don’t have to be an expert or former CIA to know these videos aren’t intended to be interpreted literally, and you don’t have to be an expert to know that these journalists are handing you a con job.

Democrats brainstorm additional ways they can help Trump win in 2020

Riding the success of the Speaker Pelosi speech shredding video, Democrats are working closely with the Trump campaign to generate additional campaign content to help propel Trump to victory in 2020.

“We welcome all the help we can get from Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats,” said Brad Parscale, Trump 2020 campaign manager. “With impeachment and the Iowa Caucus debacle boosting Trump’s approval rating to the highest level of his presidency, we’re considering just sitting back and letting the Dems drive this bus.”

“The Democrats have a proven track record of blowing races they should win and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory,” said Drew Hammill, Speaker Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff. “When the Trump team came to us expressing concern over the president’s declining poll numbers, we had just one question for them: How can we help?”

The result was a video showing Speaker Pelosi tearing up President Trump’s State of the Union address as he delivers good economic news and honors an American World War II hero. “I wish I could take credit for that,” said Parscale. “That was a stroke of genius. Someone told me she even had the pages partially pre-torn to ensure maximum dramatic effect.”

Not everyone is thrilled about the Dems strategizing for Trump. Appearing on MSNBC’s Panic Room, longtime Democratic strategist from way, way back James Carville flipped out over the Iowa debacle and the prospect of nominating an avowed socialist as the Democratic nominee.

“Eighteen percent of the population controls 52 Senate seats,” Carville said. “We’ve got to be a majoritarian party. The urban core is not gonna get it done. What we need is power! Do you understand? That’s what this is about.”

A few days later, in an interview with Vox, Carville put a fine point on his criticism of Democrats, “We’re losing our damn minds.”

Campaign staff urges Mike Bloomberg to refrain from personally stopping and frisking event attendees

Staffers for Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg are pleading with their boss today to halt the random stop and frisks he performs on attendees of campaign events. Not surprisingly, the former mayor of New York is pushing back, characterizing the practice as a means of personally connecting with voters.

“I’m sorry if my staff views these personal moments I share with Americans as an inconvenience or an infringement on their time. However, I very much enjoy the one to one contact I have with these individuals and their personal belongings,” said Bloomberg.

“One of the knocks on Bloomberg is his lack of charisma and his inability to connect with average Americans. Aside from his obvious fondness for patting down and manually probing nearly everyone he encounters, he probably thinks he’s making a positive and lasting impression on voters,” observes MSNBC political analyst Hayes Matthews.

However, many campaign staffers are openly questioning the implementation of a new policy Bloomberg refers to as “voter forfeiture.” Under this practice, Bloomberg often seizes something of value from the individual during the stop and frisk, promising to return it once they have cast a vote for him.

The practice has raised more than a few eyebrows on the campaign trail, and has many crying foul. “He relieved me of my engagement ring,” complained one attendee of a New York campaign event. “Now I have to postpone my wedding until after the election.”

Others complain that the billionaire allows his hands to linger a little too long over some search areas. “Stop and frisk, my ass,” protested one event attendee. “He patted his way straight to my tush and wouldn’t move on till he got my endorsement.”

Don’t expect the policy to end anytime soon. Said one staffer, “As long as Bloomberg has a reasonable suspicion that you might not vote for him, he’s probably going to let his fingers do the walking.”

MSNBC reporting Tulsi Gabbard expected to address Russian Bot-Con during two week campaign absence

“Beware the Russian bots…” wrote Wajahat Ali of the New York Times. No one can say we haven’t been warned.

Now MSNBC is reporting that Hawaii Representative, Democratic Presidential Candidate, and deep cover Russian agent Tulsi Gabbard’s planned two week campaign break to serve her country is actually just a ruse to coordinate with her Russian handlers and address a Russian Bot Conference in Moscow.

NBC News points to articles in Russian propaganda news sites RT and Sputnik, reporting on Gabbard’s absence, as proof that she’s coordinating with the Russians.

“This is a clear example of Russian disinformation peddling,” says MSNBC’s Senior Conspiracy Correspondent Joy Reid. “Russian bots have even created a special hashtag #ThankYouForYourServiceTulsi to promote Gabbard’s presidential bid and draw attention away from her covert activities.”

Experts who closely monitor Russian English-language news sites are convinced Gabbard’s announcement that she’ll be taking a two week break to fulfill her military service obligation, is just a code to the Russians to say, “Kremlin, I’m coming.”

According to security experts, chatter among Russian bots has increased dramatically since Gabbard’s recent announcement with most expressing glowing sentiments like “Aloha, Tulsi, we love you” and “Tulsi 2020”.

Don’t be fooled by the phony support they say. Instead national security commentators appearing on MSNBC believe all the love is just a prelude to her expected address at Russian Bot-Con. Gabbard’s presentation entitled “Putin’s Puppet, Assad’s Toadie, Kamala’s Worst Nightmare: How to Swing an Election in the Age of Fake News,” is expected to deliver instructions to her secret army of internet bots, calibrating the Russian propaganda machine as the Democratic primaries move into full-swing.

NBC News dot connectors and conspiracy analysts will continue to monitor internet activity for further developments.