Fifty-one years ago today, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his final, prescient warning about the rising power of the military industrial complex. More than half a century later, we find ourselves in a political system which has ignored Eisenhower’s sound advice as the influence of the war industry on our society reaches a crescendo. Nowhere is this “disastrous rise of misplaced power” more apparent than in the debate about the Pentagon budget taking place in Washington, D.C.

It’s really time for either some consistency in the way the government pursues its war on terror violent extremism, or an admission that the war on terror has disintegrated into a war on those who oppose U.S. empire. The government is still investigating a bunch of peace activists for material support. And yet four prominent Republicans can offer the same kind of material support as the peace activists — but this time in service of war or U.S. hegemony or oil — with no similar consequences?

In March, Obama ordered all executive branch agencies and departments to study their use of outside contractors. Wonder of wonders . . . they’ve found that in many cases, government workers actually do a better job for the money. IRS collections are better, and now the DOD is getting in on the act.

I’m sure the GOP deficit hawks will be cheering this news, despite the fact that it reverses the eight years of BushCo shoveling money out the door that they enabled and encouraged.

Jeremy Scahill expands on his explanation for the big Vanity Fair piece on Erik Prince.

Thirty Republicans in the Senate voted against Sen. Al Franken’s amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act that prevents government contractors requiring their employees to submit to arbitration rather than taking assault cases to court. It appears that Sen. Dan Inouye, Chair of the Appropriations Committee, is now contemplating removing the Franken Amendment from the bill.

An article in today’s Washington Post by Karen de Young (H/T Spencer Ackerman) highlights the determination to race to catastrophe by the Obama administration. In an ever-ending reconsideration and analysis of Afghanistan party, the Obama administration is said to be internally assessing the progress of the Afghan-Pakistan War over the next few weeks.

There’s a new and damning report from the Department of Defense Inspector General on its investigation into the electrocution death of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth. The report concludes that Staff Sgt. Maseth’s death was the result of shoddy electrical work, electrical work performed by U.S. military contractor KBR.

It also concludes that the Army failed to properly oversee KBR’s work, allowing the danger to U.S.

Last January, Sens. Dorgan and Casey and the Democratic Policy Committee pushed the Department of Defense to investigate multiple issues with electrocution deaths in Iraq.

The IG’s office delivered its initial report yesterday (PDF). As Sen. Byron Dorgan says:

U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) said Monday a new Defense Department Inspector General investigation confirms findings of a hearing he chaired a year ago:

It seems that the continued push by the Democratic Policy Committee regarding allegations of shoddy electrical work from KBR have finally opened the Pentagon investigative door.  From a DPC press release (PDF): Two U.S. Senators today are requesting a meeting with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the mother of a U.S. soldier who has been informed by an Army investigator that her son’s death by electrocution at his base in Baghdad has been re-classified by the Army from “accidental” to “negligent homicide” by contractor KBR and two of its supervisors….

Is everything in the defense budget going to be COINy, or are we going to get actual, deep defense budget cuts?