#department of defense inspector general

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Under Donald Trump’s leadership, the West Wing operated more like a pill mill than the White House, at least according to a January report by the Department of Defense inspector general, which capped a six-year investigation into the administration’s medical practices.

But sources knowledgeable on the matter paint an even more dramatic image than that, describing the nation’s highest office as “awash in speed,” reported Rolling Stone.

Common pills included modafinil, Adderall, fentanyl, morphine, and ketamine, according to the Pentagon report. But other, unlisted drugs—like Xanax—were equally easy to come by from the White House Medical Unit, according to sources that spoke to the magazine.

At least two senior staffers would regularly mix the depressant with alcohol, a potentially life-threatening combo, to deal with the stress of working with a highly erratic boss.

“You try working for him and not chasing pills with alcohol,” one source told Rolling Stone.

While other presidents were known to take a mix of drug cocktails to fight off back pain (like JFK) or bad moods (like Nixon), no previous administrations matched the level of debauchery of Trump’s, whose in-office pharmacists unquestioningly handed out highly addictive substances to staffers who needed pick-me-ups or energy boosts—no doctor’s exam, referral, or prescription required.

“It was kind of like the Wild West. Things were pretty loose. Whatever someone needs, we were going to fill this,” another source said.

Ultimately, the unmitigated access to controlled substances fostered an environment that would have been considered highly illegal and problematic anywhere else in the nation—if it weren’t inside the very office that helps craft those regulations.

“Is it being done appropriately or legally all the time? No. But are they going to get to that end result that the bosses want? Yeah,” said another, referring to the high demands of the office.

Meanwhile, pharmacists described an atmosphere of fear within the West Wing, claiming they would be “fired” if they spoke out or would receive negative work assignments if they didn’t hand pills over to staffers.

[tomorrowusa]

Trump White House staffers were apparently big pill poppers. And we're not talking about generic ibuprofen or Vitamin C.

The White House has its own pharmacy. It's run by the military because the president happens to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces. But during the Trump administration things went awry – as you might expect.

For years, the White House Medical Unit, run by the White House Military Office, provided the full scope of pharmaceutical services to senior officials and staff—it stored, inventoried, prescribed, dispensed, and disposed of prescription medications, including opioids and sleep medications. However, it was not staffed by a licensed pharmacist or pharmacy support staff, nor was it credentialed by any outside agency. The operations of this pseudo-pharmacy went as well as one might expect, according to the DoD OIG's alarming investigation report. The investigation was prompted by complaints in May 2018 alleging that an unnamed "senior military medical officer" was engaged in "improper medical practices." [ ... ] Provigil is a drug that treats excessive tiredness and is typically used for patients with narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and other sleep disorders. Brand-name Provigil is 55 times more expensive than the generic equivalent. Between 2017 and 2019, the White House pharmacy spent an estimated $98,000 for Provigil. In that same timeframe, it also spent an estimated $46,500 for Ambien, a prescription sedative, which is 174 times more expensive than the generic equivalent. Even further, the White House Medical Unit spent an additional $100,000 above generic drug cost by having Walter Reed National Military Medical Center fill brand-name prescriptions.

While they were plotting to repeal Obamacare for millions of Americans, Trump staffers were getting brand name stimulants and sedatives cheap and sticking US taxpayers with the bill.

They were handing out baggies of drugs to staffers going on trips overseas.

The staffer told OIG investigators that ahead of overseas trips, the staff would prepare packets of controlled medications to be handed out to White House staff. "And those would typically be Ambien or Provigil and typically both, right. So we would normally make these packets of Ambien and Provigil, and a lot of times they’d be in like five tablets in a zip‑lock bag. And so traditionally, too, we would hand these out. ... But a lot of times the senior staff would come by or their staff representatives... would come by the residence clinic to pick it up. And it was very much a, 'hey, I’m here to pick this up for Ms. X.' And the expectation was we just go ahead and pass it out."

Trump wanted to send the US military into Mexico to go after drug kingpins. But he was running his own out of control drug dispensing operation financed by tax money.

The Department of Defense Inspector General's report detailed how Schedule II drugs were poorly inventoried and monitored. (emphasis added)

The Code of Federal Regulations requires that registered pharmacies maintain inventories and records of Schedule II controlled substances separately from all other pharmacy records.16 In our site visit to the EEOB Clinic, we concluded that the clinic maintained the controlled substance inventory records in a binder on hand‑written paper logs, stored in the EEOB clinic’s medication dispensing area. The inventory records showed that White House Medical Unit stocked four different types of Schedule II opioid pain medications (fentanyl, hydrocodone, morphine, and oxycodone), as well as medications from Schedules III through V, such as stimulants and sedatives. However, White House Medical Unit kept the records for its Schedule II medications in the EEOB’s inventory binder together with records for all other controlled medications and not maintained separately as required by the CFR.

So the Trump White House pharmacy also included opioids which were not properly kept track of. The Trump drug mill was a microcosm for his administration as a whole.

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

The Washington Post reported that administration officials informed Congress of the 100 foreign military sales to Israel in a classified briefing. Few details are known of the sales, because keeping each one small meant their contents remained secret, but they are reported to have included precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid. The Arms Export Control Act makes significant exceptions for arms sales to close allies – a limit of $25m for ‘major defense equipment’, defined as big-ticket items that require a lot of research and development, but the limit rises to $100m for other “defense articles” like bombs. “This doesn’t just seem like an attempt to avoid technical compliance with US arms export law, it’s an extremely troubling way to avoid transparency and accountability on a high-profile issue,” Ari Tolany, director of the security assistance monitor at the Centre for International Policy thinktank, said. She added that, in exploiting the loophole, the Biden administration was following the steps of its predecessor. “They’re very much borrowing from the Trump playbook to dodge congressional oversight,” Tolany said. The state department office of the inspector general found that between 2017 and 2019, the Trump administration had made 4,221 below-threshold arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, worth an estimated total of $11.2bn.

[dertaglichedan]

Bombshell transcripts: Trump urged use of troops to protect Capitol on Jan. 6 , but was rebuffed

Key lawmaker says interviews prove Pentagon wrongly allowed optics to overwhelm security concerns in lead-up to fateful day. The Pentagon's top brass did not comply with Trump's orders because of political concerns and "optics."

Then-President Donald Trump gave clear instructions to Pentagon brass days before the Jan. 6 riots to “do whatever it takes” to keep the U.S. Capitol safe, including deploying National Guard or active-duty troops, but top officials did not comply because of political concerns, according to transcripts of bombshell interviews conducted by the Defense Department's chief watchdog that shine new light on government disfunction ahead of the historic tragedy.

Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff, confirmed to the Pentagon inspector general three years ago that during a Jan. 3, 2021, Oval Office meeting Trump pre-approved the use of National Guard or active duty troops to keep peace in the nation’s capital on the day Congress was to certify the results of the 2020 election.

Milley's interviews were among several key to transcripts obtained by House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., and shared with Just the News.

“The President just says, ‘Hey look at this. It’s going to be a large amount of protesters come in here on the 6th, and make sure that you have sufficient National Guard or Soldiers to make sure it’s a safe event,’” Milley told the inspector general in one of two interviews he did in spring 2021 during a probe of the Pentagon’s response to Jan. 6.

Milley said then-Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, himself a former general, assured Trump there was an adequate safety plan for Pentagon assistance to Washington, D.C. “Miller responds by saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got a plan, and we’ve got it covered.’ And that’s about it,” Milley recalled.

[darkmaga-returns]

Feds Target Prominent SW Florida Conservative Businessman and Activist Alfie Oakes

Dr. Joseph Sansone

Nov 07, 2024

Apparent rogue federal agencies raided the home and farm of Alfie Oakes a SW Florida conservative activist. Reportedly, federal agents used a battering ram to enter Alfie Oakes home while his wife and daughter were home.

NBC Local News

Law enforcement, including federal officials, were seen going in and out of the home of Alfie Oakes on Santa Cruz Court in the Villages of Monterey community in North Naples and an agricultural packing plant in Immokalee. Federal agents from the Defense Criminal Investigative Service were seen at the packing plant. The DCIS investigates cases of fraud, bribery, and corruption, including cyber crimes and computer intrusions.

WINK News

Several law enforcement departments were also seen at Oakes Farm packing house, including the Secret Service, the IRS and the U.S. Department of Defense Office of Inspector General on the scene.

Alfie Oakes gained notoriety by refusing to engage in Nuremberg Crimes and force face masks on his employees or customers during the COVID madness. The product of a vertical marketing business model, Oakes’s Seed to Table grocery store is a destination with an on site restaurant and often features conservative speakers. Alfie Oakes has been interviewed by Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson and is a prominent local businessman and Collier County Republican State Committeeman.

The purpose of the alleged investigation is a mystery. It appears that Alfie Oakes is being targeted for being a Trump supporter and being outspoken about the fraudulent 2020 presidential election as well as openly resisting COVID tyranny.

In a tyranny, truth is treason….

[empirearchives]

Changes to the Tax Collection System in Revolutionary and Napoleonic France

My translation from Le prix de la gloire: Napoléon et l’argent by Pierre Branda.

This part is specifically about the reforms made to the tax collection system. Problems with taxation had been the source of many woes, so it went through major changes.

“The [tax] work of the Consulate mainly concerned the reorganization of tax collection. Until now, this essential element was not administered directly by the Ministry of Finance. The Constituent Assembly had wanted the tax rolls for direct contributions, that is to say the ‘tax slips’, to be established by municipal administrations. Their work was complex, because each year it was necessary to draw up a list of taxpayers, determine each person’s share of tax and send them the amount of the contribution to pay. Poorly motivated (or even corrupt), the municipalities had put little care in the execution of their mission since a large part of the taxpayers had not yet received anything for their taxes of year VIII, or even of year VII or year VI. Also, with two or three years of delay in preparing the rolls, it was not surprising that tax revenues were low (nearly 400 million francs were thus left outstanding). If the sending of tax matrices left something to be desired, the collection of direct contributions was hardly better. The tax collector was also not an agent of the administration: this function was assigned to any person who agreed to collect taxes with the lowest possible commission (otherwise called ‘collecte à la moins-dite’). With such a system, there were numerous inadequacies, often due to incompetence, but also due to the prevailing spirit of fraud. However, in their defense, the profits of the collectors were most of the time too low to provide such a service; also, to compensate for their losses, they were ‘forced’ to multiply small and big cheats. In any case, in such a troubled period, letting simple individuals carry out such a delicate mission could only be dangerous for the regularity of public accounts. In short, the mode of operation of taxation that Bonaparte and Gaudin inherited was failing on all sides and threatened to sink the State.”

“One month after Gaudin’s appointment, on December 13, 1799, the Directorate of Direct Contributions was created with the mission of establishing and sending tax matrices. This administration, dependent on the Ministry of Finance, was made up of a general director, 99 departmental directors and 840 inspectors and controllers. The organization of direct contributions became both centralized and pyramidal, the opposite of the previous system, decentralized and with a confused hierarchy. The work of preparing the rolls, for so long entrusted to local authorities, passed entirely ‘in the hands of the Minister of Finance’ and in this way the taxpayer found himself in direct contact with the administration. The tax system no longer having any obstacles, the beneficial effects of such a measure did not take long to be felt. With ardor, the agents of this new administration carried out considerable work: three series of rolls, that is to say more than one hundred thousand tax slips, were established in a single year. It must be said that the ministry had not skimped on their pay (6,000 francs per year for a director, 4,000 for an inspector and 1,800 for a controller), which was undoubtedly not unrelated to such success.”

“Tax reform was slower. It was not until 1804 that all tax collectors were civil servants. The consular system gradually replaced the collectors of the departments, then of the main cities and finally of all the municipalities whose tax rolls exceeded 15,000 francs. At the end of the Consulate, the entire tax administration was thus entirely dependent on the central government. Subsequently, the one in charge of indirect contributions (taxes on tobacco, alcohol or salt) created on February 25, 1804 and called the Régie des droits réunis was built on the same pyramidal and centralized model. It was the same later for customs.”

“According to Michel Bruguière, historian of public finances, ‘Napoleon and Gaudin can be considered the builders of the French tax administration. [...] They had also developed and codified the essential principles of our tax law, so profoundly derogatory from the rules of French law, since the taxpayer has nothing to do with it, while the administration has all the powers’. Basically, after having clearly understood the true cause of the ‘financial wound’, Bonaparte wanted an effective, almost ‘despotic’ instrument to avoid experiencing the unfortunate fate of his predecessors. As a good soldier, he created a fiscal ‘army’ responsible for providing the regime with the sinews of war. It was also necessary to definitively break the link between private interests and state service in everything that concerned public revenue. The time of the farmer generals of the Ancien Régime or the ‘second-hand’ collectors of the Directory was well and truly over. Napoleon Bonaparte, with his fierce desire to centralize power in this area as in many others, undoubtedly gave his regime the means to last.”

French:

Page 208

Page 209

Page 210

[odinsblog]

While Democrats are busy worrying about “decorum” and “maintaining norms” and “reaching across the aisle” to eagerly “compromise” with Christoafascists, Republicans are doing unprecedented damage and routinely shatter every norm they encounter.

A divided House voted on Thursday to restrict abortion access, bar transgender health services and limit diversity training for military personnel, potentially imperiling passage of the annual defense bill as Republicans, goaded by their right flank, loaded the measure with conservative policy dictates.

The House voted 221 to 213 to overturn a Pentagon policy guaranteeing abortion access to service members regardless of where they are stationed, with Republicans propelling it to passage over near-unanimous Democratic opposition.

By a vote of 222 to 211, the House also adopted a measure to bar the military’s health plan from covering gender-transition surgeries — which currently can be covered only with a waiver — and gender-affirming hormone therapy. And the chamber was on track on Thursday to vote on a Republican proposal to strip funding from the Pentagon for all diversity, equity and inclusion training.

Taken together, the series of changes — which hard-right lawmakers had demanded be put on the floor as a condition for allowing the legislation to move forward — threatened to sap critical Democratic support for the annual defense policy measure, an $886 billion bill that would grant a 5.2 percent pay raise to military personnel, counter aggressive moves by China and Russia, and establish a special inspector general to oversee U.S. aid to Ukraine.

“I don’t think I’ve ever not voted for an N.D.A.A,” said Representative Pete Aguilar, Democrat of California and the No. 3 Democrat, using the initials for the National Defense Authorization Act, one of the few pieces of legislation regarded as a must-pass item to come before Congress each year. “I’m a no.”

The action came during an extraordinarily bitter debate in the House over the annual defense policy measure, normally a bipartisan affair that draws broad support, which this week has instead become a battlefield in a political culture war stoked by the G.O.P.

In heated exchanges on the floor, Republicans accused Democrats and the Biden administration of trying to turn the Pentagon into a hotbed of radical progressivism, while Democrats said Republicans were trying to use the Defense Department to achieve an extreme agenda of rolling back the rights of women, people of color and transgender individuals.

(continue reading)

[ritchiepage2001newaccount]

Project2025 #CorpMedia #Oligarchs #MegaBanks vs #Union #Occupy #NoDAPL #BLM #SDF #DACA #MeToo #Humanity #FeelTheBern

JinJiyanAzadi #BijiRojava Trump believes fight against DAESH achieved goal [UPDATES]

According to reports by Reuters and numerous American media, the US military troops are to be withdrawn from Syria…

RELATED UPDATE: Mattis resigns after clash with Trump over troop withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-announces-mattis-will-leave-as-defense-secretary-at-the-end-of-february/2018/12/20/e1a846ee-e147-11e8-ab2c-b31dcd53ca6b_story.html

RELATED UPDATE: Top U.S. envoy in the fight against ISIS resigns

RELATED UPDATE: Journalist Houda-Pepin: We betrayed the Kurds

RELATED UPDATE: Chief Pentagon spokeswoman announces resignation

RELATED UPDATE: Bolton’s visit to Ankara: Yellow vests, 944 and more

RELATED UPDATE: Trump Says ISIS Is Defeated. Reality Says Otherwise.

RELATED UPDATE: Report Warns ISIS is “Resurging” in Syria After Trump Ordered a Partial Troop Withdrawal

RELATED UPDATE: The Man Who Couldn’t Take It Anymore

FURTHER READING:

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

June 5, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUN 06, 2024

Today the S&P 500, which tracks the stock performance of 500 of the biggest companies on U.S. stock exchanges, closed at a new record high of 5,354. The Nasdaq Composite, which is weighted toward the information technology sector, also closed at a record high of 17,187. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was also up, but not to a new record. It closed at 38,807.

That notable economic news got very little attention, likely in part because there is so much else going on.

Most dramatically, House speaker Mike Johnson elevated Ronny Jackson (R-TX) and Scott Perry (R-PA) to the House Intelligence Committee, giving them oversight of the entire U.S. intelligence community and access to the nation’s most sensitive foreign intelligence. The Intelligence community includes intelligence from the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Space Force, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Department, the State Department, the Department of Energy (which oversees information about nuclear weapons), the Treasury Department, and the Department of Homeland Security.

It also oversees the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and that oversight is likely a key reason Johnson put Jackson and Perry on the committee. 

A former Navy admiral, Jackson was Trump’s White House physician. Trump liked him enough to try unsuccessfully to promote him into the cabinet and within the U.S. Navy, and then to back him successfully for Congress after he retired from the Navy in 2019. In 2022 the U.S. Navy demoted him from admiral to captain after a 2021 report by the inspector general of the Defense Department showed he had “disparaged, belittled, bullied, and humiliated” his staff and abused alcohol on at least two occasions when he was supposed to be providing medical care to government officials.   

Perry is more problematic than Jackson. Cassidy Hutchinson, former aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, told the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol that Perry played an important role in the plan to keep Trump in office after he lost the 2020 presidential election. She told podcast host Scott Lamar in October 2023 that Perry was “central to the planning of January 6,” and she has said repeatedly that Perry asked Trump for a pardon before he left office.

Federal authorities from the FBI seized Perry’s cell phone in 2022 as part of their investigation into the effort to seize the presidency; he is the only member of Congress whose cell phone was seized. Like Trump, who has attacked the FBI since then-director James Comey refused to drop the investigation into the connections between Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russian operatives, Perry has complained bitterly about the FBI’s investigation of him.

Now, Perry will be on the committee that oversees the FBI. In a statement, he said: “I look forward to providing not only a fresh perspective, but conducting actual oversight—not blind obedience to some facets of our Intel Community that all too often abuse their powers, resources, and authority to spy on the American People.”

Former director of the CIA General Michael Hayden wrote: “That’s unbelievable. Both of them. Intelligence Committee? God help us.” 

There is other news about the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election: yesterday Wisconsin attorney general Josh Kaul filed felony forgery charges against attorney Kenneth Chesebro, who planned the use of fake electors; former judge James Troupis, who managed Trump’s 2020 campaign in Wisconsin; and Michael Roman, a political operative who allegedly delivered the paperwork for Wisconsin’s fake electors to a congressional staffer to try to get them to Vice President Mike Pence. 

On January 6, 2021, after the document was delivered, Troupis texted to Chesebro: “Excellent. Tomorrow let’s talk about SCOTUS strategy going forward. Enjoy the history you have made possible today.” 

In Georgia, a court of appeals paused the case against Trump and his co-conspirators from proceeding until it rules on Trump’s appeal to disqualify Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis. It has tentatively set a hearing date for October 4, meaning that voters will not get to learn the outcome of the trial until after the election. If Trump is reelected, the trial will almost certainly not go forward. 

The federal criminal case against Trump for retaining classified documents is also stalled. Judge Aileen Cannon not only has put off hearings, she has added a hearing on June 21 to consider whether Special Counsel Jack Smith was properly appointed in the first place. She is revisiting a decision already decided in the affirmative in 2019 by the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals. She has also taken the highly unusual step of inviting three people not involved in the case to argue in that hearing: two will argue that the appointment is invalid, one will argue that it was done properly. 

Meanwhile, there were signs over the past few days of the deeply different party principles at the heart of the 2024 election. At an event to reach Black voters in what Julia Terruso and Sean Collins Walsh of the Philadelphia Inquirer described as “one of the whitest and most conservative parts of Philly,” Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL), who is Black, illustrated the grip of a fantasy idyllic past on MAGA Republicans. 

Donalds praised the Jim Crow era of American history—which was literally named for a vicious caricature of African Americans that helped to justify the lynching that characterized the period—because “during Jim Crow the Black family was together.” He blamed the Great Society programs of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, including civil rights and social welfare programs, for eroding family values. 

On the House floor, Minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) urged Donalds to “check yourself before you wreck yourself.” Democratic National Committee chair Jamie Harrison was less poetic but more succinct. He wrote: “These fools have lost their damn minds….”

In the Senate, Democrats forced Republicans to vote on advancing a bill to protect access to contraception. Republicans threatened a filibuster, meaning it would take 60 votes to bring the bill forward. And so the measure failed by a vote of 51 in favor to 39 against (Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer of New York voted no so he could bring the measure up again). Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted in favor of the measure. All the other Republicans either voted no or did not vote. 

All the Republicans running for reelection this year voted no: John Barrasso (R-WY), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Rick Scott (R-FL), and Roger Wicker (R-MS). 

Some of them said they voted no because there was no danger that Republicans would attack contraception, claiming that Democrats were just “fear-mongering.” But in 2022, House Republicans overwhelmingly voted against protecting contraceptive rights, and in an interview last month, Trump said he was looking at restrictions on contraceptives before his campaign walked the statement back. Yesterday, in a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on “How Abortion Bans Have Created a Health Care Nightmare Across America,” a Republican witness, Dr. Christina Francis, chief executive officer of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) took the position that IUDs and Plan B emergency contraception constitute abortion and should be banned. In the Senate itself, Jodi Ernst (R-IA) has already proposed getting rid of Plan B.

A February 2024 poll showed that 80% of American voters said that protecting access to birth control was “deeply important” to them.  

For all their rhetoric about “America First,” MAGA Republicans are out of step with actual Americans. The Trump loyalists now in charge of the Republican National Committee also appear to be remarkably ill-informed about the country itself. Sam Brody, political reporter for the Boston Globe, noted yesterday that on their website promoting the Republican National Convention to be held in July in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Republicans used a photograph not of Milwaukee, but of Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

I think we knew that a federal indictment of former president Donald Trump would elicit a collective primal scream from the right-wing fever swamp — and they have not disappointed.

In true Trump-era fashion, the response from most elected Republicans has been a collective whine about "unfairness" and the "weaponization" of the "deep state." Some have even gone so far as to at least hint around that it's a nice little country we have here, be a shame if anything happened to it. I would expect nothing less. This is how they roll.

There are, notably, a few dissenters from that party line.

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney put out a statement saying that Trump "brought this on himself" and it's "consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest," which is true. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a 2024 GOP hopeful, said "these facts are devastating," which is also true. But they, and a handful of others, are outliers among GOP elected officials.

One very significant former GOP official has come out swinging, however:

There are a number of Trump defenses out there. But the main talking point, which we can assume was coordinated, is that this is a political prosecution engineered by President Biden to take out his most threatening political rival. And their main proof of this is that the Department of Justice (DOJ) declined to prosecute Hillary Clinton. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina probably articulated this the best, including the deployment of some very emotional righteous indignation:

He's not saying it's ok, he's just saying that Hillary Clinton got off so that cancels out Trump's crimes. Or something.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wi. says that Trump refused to prosecute Clinton but Joe Biden sent in a SWAT Team to torment Trump:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sounded the same theme:

“Is there a different standard for a Democrat secretary of state versus a former Republican president? I think there needs to be one standard of justice in this country. Let's enforce it on everybody and make sure we all know the rules.”

It wasn't a perfect defense of Trump but as long as he makes sure to condemn Hillary Clinton is probably good enough for the moment.

As much as I loathe the idea of re-litigating "but her emails," I'm sorry to say that it's necessary. There was almost no pushback to this talking point from the media, probably because they didn't get the Clinton story right in the first place. A few have since stepped up to point out that Clinton didn't refuse to cooperate with the government, as Trump did, although Trump and his accomplices will no doubt cry inanely about her "bleaching the emails" and "smashing the phones" and that will be enough to sustain the argument. Trump may even say "Russia, if you're listening" again. But those allegations are just plain silly and always have been. And the fact that she didn't obstruct the investigation is only part of the story.

As it happened, Clinton copied all work emails to the State Department system so they had them. The Justice Department inspector general issued a report in 2018 about the FBI Investigation and determined that the people tasked with marking documents as classified had not done so clearly. Moreover, only three email chains "contained any classification markings of any kind," and they were low-priority "call sheets" marked with the lowest priority of classification, which had info and details for Clinton to refer to when talking to a foreign leader. There were no nuclear secrets or war plans among them, needless to say.

The State Department under Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo did two separate investigations and found in 2019 that there was "there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information" and that Clinton bore no "individual culpability."

And let's dispense with the "magnanimous" Trump defense. Trump tried desperately to get the DOJ to investigate Clinton (and many others he considered his political enemies.) His White House counsel told him that the DOJ operated independently and if he ordered it there would be tremendous unrest from career officials and massive political blowback. That didn't stop him. He conspired with Matthew Whittaker, then an assistant to then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to get Sessions to assign a Special Counsel to investigate Clinton. In the end, they succeeded in getting Sessions to assign John Huber, a US Attorney in Utah to look into all the allegations against Clinton, including the bogus "Uranium One" scandal which had also already been dismissed. That investigation didn't turn up anything either.

Notably, when Bill Barr became Attorney General he looked into all of it and also came up with nothing. If anyone thinks that Barr wouldn't have prosecuted Clinton if he could have doesn't recall just how much he hates her guts. The evidence just wasn't there. So, the FBI, the DOJ Inspector General, two State Department probes, a Clinton-hating attorney general and a U.S. Attorney assigned to review all the evidence found that Clinton committed no crimes. (I'm not even counting the 10 Benghazi investigations which were the genesis of the email scandal —- and also came up empty.)

I know your eyes have glazed over by this point and you wonder why in the world anyone should care about this. And frankly, we shouldn't have to. It's long settled ancient history. But the right's "whatboutism" and the media's continued unwillingness to acknowledge that, once the FBI determined there was no crime, there was no crime, I fear that a lot of people who aren't already down the right wing rabbit hole will be persuaded that this is a partisan prosecution simply because of the words "classified documents."

When former FBI Director James Comey held that first notorious press conference in the summer of 2016, in which he larded with inappropriate personal judgments about Clinton, he laid out the criteria the Justice Department uses when it decides whether to prosecute classified documents cases. He said:

“In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.”

Assuming they have proof of the charges in the Trump indictment, there can be little doubt that they met three of those four criteria, (the fourth being disloyalty to the United States which I believe to be true as well.) So when you see these Republicans emitting their epic whines about how unfair all this is because Hillary didn't get indicted, keep in mind that it wasn't for lack of Trump trying to get it done. It was because, unlike him, she didn't break the law. And even Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo and Bill Barr couldn't find a way to make it so.

In case you were wondering, yes the House Republicans are considering a new investigation into —- you guessed it —- her emails. Because of course they are.

[tomorrowusa]

Stuff like this is not exactly news, but it is finally making the news.

In a speech at the Turning Point Action convention in Detroit on Saturday night, former President Donald Trump once again questioned President Joe Biden's mental acuity, suggesting that Biden should take a cognitive test. However, in the next breath, Trump confused the name of the doctor who administered the test to him during his presidency. "He doesn't even know what the word 'inflation' means. I think he should take a cognitive test like I did," Trump said of Biden. Seconds later, he continued, "Doc Ronny Johnson. Does everyone know Ronny Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor, and he said I was the healthiest president, he feels, in history, so I liked him very much indeed immediately."

The doctor Trump was referring to is actually named Ronny Jackson, not Ronny Johnson. Jackson, who served as the White House physician for part of Trump's presidency, is now a Republican congressman from Texas and one of Trump's most vocal defenders on Capitol Hill. Trump, who turned 78 on Friday, has made questioning whether the 81-year-old Biden is fit for a second term a centerpiece of his campaign. However, critics quickly seized on his Saturday night gaffe, with the Biden campaign posting a clip of the moment, minutes later.

Biden has had a lifelong stutter which he's mostly overcome. Trump's attacks on the disabled to draw attention from his own shortcomings are just part of his routine.

In fact, Trump is the candidate who repeatedly has shown increasing signs of psychological derangement.

In April, a leading psychologist said Trump's mental capabilities appear to be "faltering in a very dangerous way," while speaking on the David Packman Show. Harry Segal, a senior lecturer in psychology at Cornell University who has been critical of the former president's mental health said he believed Trump's "cognitive decline as being another layer of danger on top of an already erratic, mentally challenged person who shouldn't be anywhere near the White House."

As for Dr. Ronny Johnson Jackson, using him as a source is rather dubious.

First on CNN: Rep. Ronny Jackson made sexual comments, drank alcohol and took Ambien while working as White House physician, Pentagon watchdog finds

The Department of Defense inspector general has issued a scathing review of Rep. Ronny Jackson during his time serving as the top White House physician, concluding that he made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate, violated the policy for drinking alcohol while on a presidential trip and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted concerns from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper care.

Johnson Jackson got the nickname "Candyman" for freely handing out drugs at the White House.

Ex-White House doctor known as the ‘candyman’ dispensed pills without prescriptions

A former White House doctor was allegedly nicknamed the “candyman” for handing out pills to staff without prescriptions. [ ... ]

Former members of the White House medical unit claim that under Dr Jackson’s leadership, they had handed out stimulants and sedatives without prescriptions, and faked staff members’ identities to give them free healthcare. They claimed the practices had been shaped by Dr Jackson, now a Republican congressman, who was given the nicknames “Dr Feelgood” and “the Candyman”.

I'd love to see an analysis of Trump's blood. In addition to sky high levels of caffeine from his 12 Diet Cokes® per day, there are probably some interesting chemicals churning through his system.

[generallemarc]

What's actually in the Ukraine bill-a breakdown

Military Assistance

Military Personnel(no, this does not mean troops are being deployed) to respond to the situation in Ukraine and for related expenses: $238,190,000, subdivided into

Army: $207,158,000

Marine Corps:$3,538,000

Air Force: $23, 302,000

Space Force: $4,192,000

This is literally what it sounds like: paying for people to do things, as opposed to the next item...

Operations and Maintenance: $34,243,729,000, subdivided into

Army:$4,877,581,000

Navy:$976,405,000

Marine Corps$69(nice),045,000

Air Force: $371,475,000

Space Force:$8,443,000

Defense-wide(bolded for being important): $27,930,780,000. Of this, $13,772,460,000 is directly for aid to Ukraine, and $13, 414,432,000 is for replacement and reimbursement for both physical aid and service aid(ie training) given to Ukraine. In other words, only the first half is actually going to Ukraine(mostly in the form of physical things like vehicles, guns, ammo and equipment and not just money) while the second half never leaves America.

Procurement:$13,276,910,000, subdivided into

Missile Procurement, Army:$2,742,757,000

Ammunition Procurement, Army:$5,612,900,000,

Other Procurement, Army: $308,991,000

Weapons Procurement, Navy:$706,976,000

Other Procurement, Navy:$26,000,000

Marine Corps:$212,443,000,

Missile Procurement, Air Force:$366,001,000

Other Procurement, Air Force:$3,284,072,000

Defense-wide:$46,780,000,

Research Programs

Research and Development:$633,387,000, subdivided into

Army:$18,594,000

Navy:$13,825,000

Air Force:$406,834,000

Defense-wide:$194,125,000

Other Military Aid

Office of the Inspector General(this is funds for oversight): $8,00,000.

Related Agencies

Intelligence Community Management Account:$2,00,000

Energy Programs

Science for the production of medical, stable, and radioactive isotopes(no idea why this is here): $98,000,000

Atomic Energy Defense Activities

Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation for etc etc:$143,915,000

Federal Salaries and Expenses for etc etc: $5,540,000

Health and Human Services

Refugee and Entrant Assistance: $481,000,000. This provision specifically allows the relevant agencies to use this money for grants or contracts with nonprofits, which imo means it's likely that most of this will go towards aiding Ukrainian refugees in Europe, and thus that this isn't just money for moving Ukrainians to America.

Department of State

Diplomatic Programs to respond to the situation in Ukraine and countries affected by said situation: $60,000,000

United States Agency for International Development

USAID operating expenses appropriated to the President for response to etc etc: $39,000,000

USAID Office of Inspector General: $10,000,000

Bilateral Economic Assistance

Transition Initiatives(meaning transition to democracy): $25,000,000

Economic Support Fund(for Ukraine's government): $7,899,000,000. A provision states that none of this money may be used for pensions(as an anti-corruption measure) and that at least $50,000,000 of this amount must be used to respond to food insecurity caused by the war.

Assistance for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia(for Ukraine's private sector):$1,575,000,000

International Security Assistance

International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement(for Ukraine and other countries affected by the invasion):$300,000,000

Nonproliferation, Antiterrorism, Demining and Related Programs(for Ukraine and other countries affected by the invasion): $100,000,000

Foreign Military Financing Program(for Ukraine and other countries affected by the invasion): $1,600,000,000

Some of the more impactful general provisions of the act:

The transfer of long-range ATACMS to Ukraine was required by the act, and that appears to have already happened. The President was given the option to not do so if he determined it would be detrimental to America's national security interests, but it appears he didn't.

The Secretary of State was directed to insure as much in-person monitoring as possible for funds appropriated for Economic Support, Assistance for Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia, International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement, and Nonproliferation, Anti-terrorism, Demining and Related Programs

The amount of money spent out of the total amounts budgeted for Economic Support and Assistance for etc etc may not exceed half the total amount of funds given by all donors to Ukraine. This basically means that, in terms of economic assistance, Europe has to do at least as much spending as we do.

The two headings for economic assistance mentioned above(totaling to $9,474,000,000) are loans that the President may only forgive in the following circumstances: up to 50% of the debts incurred by these loans may be cancelled by the President at any time after November 15th, 2024, while the remaining 50% may be cancelled at any time after January 1st, 2026. Both cancellations would be subject to Congressional approval.

[tieflingkisser]

Patrol dogs are terrorizing and mauling prisoners inside the United States

Many men were prone or shackled when the dogs attacked. Several men said officers shouted racial slurs as dogs bit into their flesh.

In May 2004, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld addressed Congress. The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib "was inconsistent with the values of our nation," Rumsfeld said. "It was certainly fundamentally un-American." Yet the use of attack-trained dogs at Abu Ghraib appears to have been imported from the United States. A 2005 report from the Department of Justice's inspector general scrutinized the private contractors who helped to build and run Abu Ghraib, detailing the backgrounds of the eight corrections experts who selected the site, oversaw the rebuilding of the prison, and trained staff at Abu Ghraib: Lane McCotter, Gary DeLand, Terry Bartlett, Richard Billings, Larry DuBois, John Armstrong, Terry Stewart, and Charles Ryan. Each had been a high-level state prison administrator or corrections commissioner before arriving in Baghdad. All eight, Insider has found, previously started, expanded, or administered programs at US prisons that authorized the use of dogs to attack and intimidate incarcerated people. McCotter in New Mexico and Utah; DeLand, Billings, and Bartlett in Utah; Ryan and Stewart in Arizona; DuBois in Massachusetts; and Armstrong in Connecticut. Two decades after the human-rights abuses unfolded at Abu Ghraib, almost all of these state prison systems continue to use unmuzzled attack-trained dogs. Insider has identified 12 states that authorize their use against people in state custody. At least 23 prisons in eight states have deployed attack-trained dogs on prisoners in recent years — Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Virginia. Over the past six years, hundreds of incarcerated people have been bitten or mauled. Human Rights Watch researchers wrote, in 2006, that they were unaware of a single other prison system in the world that used dogs to attack people in the confined space of a cell.

[...]

Police departments have long employed trained attack dogs to supplement the range and speed of officers in the field. But prison patrol dogs aren't deployed for chases; they are used inside the prison walls. In these tight, enclosed spaces, the aggressive barking and threat of attack terrorize people trapped inside razor-wire fences and cell doors. The use of dogs to attack people in the confined space of a prison cell has been described by Human Rights Watch as a "well-kept secret" — and a human-rights violation. The dogs' presence inside prisons, the organization found, "is intended to terrify and intimidate." Even witnessing a dog attack in close quarters is harrowing. One former Virginia corrections officer said watching a dog attack a person, hearing their screams and desperate pleas and seeing all that blood, was a "primal" experience and deeply traumatizing. "It's just not something you forget," he said. For those who are the intended target of the intimidation, witnessing a dog attack is devastating, multiple men told Insider. Many suffer nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and fear for weeks and months after seeing an attack. For the hundreds of men who are bitten or mauled themselves, the physical and emotional impact can last for years. Through public-records requests, court documents, medical records, and interviews with dozens of bite victims, Insider documented at least 295 incidents where attack-trained dogs bit incarcerated people over the six years from 2017 to 2022. Insider identified one attack in Connecticut, to break up a fight in 2020; three in Massachusetts, all in the context of forced cell extractions, in 2020; five in Indiana; 15 in Arizona; and 271 attacks in Virginia. The locations of the bites indicate that many of the men may have been prone when they were attacked; a 2006 study suggested that bites to the head, neck, and torso are more likely when the target is on the ground, hiding, or partially restrained. Several men described being cuffed or compliant, spread-eagled on the ground, when attacked; one incident report from July 2022 documents that a man in a Virginia facility called Sussex II State Prison was attacked by a patrol dog after he'd been wrestled into leg irons.

[...]

The severity of the wounds caused by the attacks betrays the tremendous force the dogs can wield. Medical records obtained by Insider contain evidence of deep puncture wounds, lacerations with torn edges, and crush injuries in which muscle, nerves, and bones were damaged from the pressure of the dog's jaw. A study using data from the 1980s and 1990s in Los Angeles found bites from attack-trained dogs were more medically serious than bites from domestic pet dogs. The authors found people bitten by trained law-enforcement dogs were more likely to be hospitalized and require surgeries for skin grafts or tendon and arterial repairs. Dog mouths are also loaded with bacteria. A 1994 dog-bite study found a correlation between the depth of the bite and an increased risk of developing serious infections. In at least 18 incidents, bite victims in Virginia were wounded so severely by attack-trained dogs that they were transferred to nearby hospitals to be treated for crush injuries, extensive muscle and tissue damage, or septic infections. Others were found to have symptoms of trauma.

[...]

In response to Insider's findings, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reentry said the department was under new leadership and would be reviewing all of its policies and practices, including its use of dogs.  Other departments defended their current protocols. The Indiana Department of Correction said all its dogs were trained "using the appropriate K9 industry standards." The Delaware Department of Correction said department dogs "assist officers in meeting their safety and security mission." A spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Corrections said the department's use of patrol dogs was governed by operation procedures authorized by Virginia law.

[...]

An attack dog's bite is powerful enough to puncture sheet metal. On people, the bites rend skin and muscle. Department patrol dogs are trained to bite once and hold to minimize flesh tears and lacerations. However, in nearly 30% of the bite reports Insider analyzed, Virginia patrol dogs bit more than once or "readjusted" their bites to different body parts in response to a victim fighting or thrashing in pain. The dogs bit arms and legs most commonly but also bit stomachs, faces, hands, feet, hips, shoulders, and genitals. In at least 15 cases over the past six years, Virginia dogs mauled people all over their bodies, biting them three, four, or even six times and leaving wounds on their arms, legs, shoulders, faces, chests, and hands.

[...]

"A hundred years ago they used to put on a white sheet and use a bloodhound against Negroes," Malcolm X said in an interview not long after the protests. "Today they have taken off the white sheet and put on police uniforms and traded in the bloodhounds for police dogs." After the brutal crackdown on people protesting the killing of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, a half a century later, the Department of Justice investigated the Ferguson Police Department and found a range of civil-rights abuses. These included the excessive use of dogs to attack people, including children, in routine police encounters. In every case where racial information was available, Ferguson police officers had sicced their dogs on Black people. 

[beardedmrbean]

After a trial that spanned 98 days of testimony, massive amounts of evidence and 241 government witnesses, the unanimous jury’s verdict was read in Chief U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson’s court in Honolulu. The jury had deliberated for about four days.

Federal prosecutors maintained—and 49-year-old Miske denied—that he orchestrated the 2016 killing of Johnathan Fraser, best friend to Miske’s only son, Caleb. Miske blamed Fraser for the traffic accident that killed his son, prosecutors said.

The jury Thursday convicted Miske of killing Fraser, whose body has never been found.

Outside the court after the verdict was read, Ashley Wong, Fraser’s girlfriend in 2016, said, “It won’t bring him back.”

Fraser’s mother Shelly Miguel and other family and friends, many wearing “Justice for Johnny ” T-shirts, also attended and cried and embraced outside the federal court building after the verdict.

Miguel and Wong both said the verdict provided that justice for Fraser.

In all, the jury convicted Miske of 13 of 16 charges related to running a criminal enterprise.

”We, the jury, having found the defendant guilty of Count One, further unanimously find that, as part of the offense charged in Count One, the defendant committed, on or about July 30, 2016, murder in the second degree of Johnathan Fraser, ” the unanimous jury declared, according to court records.

He also was convicted of conspiracy to use chemical weapons, kidnapping for hire, murder for hire, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit assault in aid of racketeering, and other charges. He was found not guilty of bank fraud and drug charges.

The federal government alleged that starting in the late 1990s until 2020, Miske and his associates ran the “Miske Enterprise ” through a pattern of racketeering activity.

The racketeering activity included murder, kidnapping, arson, chemical warfare and robbery, according to federal prosecutors.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mark A. Inciong, Michael David Nammar, William KeAupuni Akina and Aislinn Affinito prosecuted the case. Prosecutors declined comment following the verdict.

On July 11, in closing arguments, Inciong reminded jurors that there are 14 standards that can be used to convict him of a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO ) conspiracy charge, but they need only two.

”One robbery, one kidnapping … only two … so I just want to be clear there were multiple incidents, ” said Inciong, speaking in court while walking the jurors through an overhead projection of the RICO conspiracy requirements.

The investigation that led to Thursday’s verdict was run by the Honolulu Police Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigation Division, Homeland Security Investigations, EPA-CID and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives.

Task force officers with the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Coast Guard Investigative Service, U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force, Hawaii National Guard, 93rd Civil Support Team and the Office of Investigations—Office of the Inspector General for the Social Security Administration, assisted in the years-long investigation.

Miske was defended by Lynn E. Panagakos and Michael Jerome Kennedy. They declined comment following the verdict.

Miske’s defense team told the story of a man who came up hard but mixed the tactics of the hustlers who provided his street smarts with savvy businessmen and laborers who taught him the value of honest hard work.

Miske was not a monster, his attorneys argued, but an entrepreneur with a passionate approach to his work. He did the hard jobs for local people.

His attorneys described Miske as a legitimate businessman who made sure to give back to the community he credits with raising him.

Miske built family business Kama ‘aina Termite and Pest Control into an industry leader and started solar and plumbing businesses. He fumigated numerous “cultural treasures ” in Hawaii, and highlighted his pro bono work to tent the Neal S. Blaisdell Center when the city could not afford it, his attorneys said.

But the government alleged that Miske controlled illegal markets popular in Hawaii and owned nightclubs where brawls over bar tabs were common and associates were accused of using chemical weapons against rival club owners.

The Miske enterprise made millions of dollars selling illegal commercial-­grade aerial fireworks on the black market, they told the jury.

Allegations including using fishing boats to move drugs and money were among the charges Miske faced.

Federal prosecutors also said Miske wanted other people killed, but they think many acts were never carried out.

Miske was facing 16 separate criminal charges and stood trial alone after his alleged co-conspirators John Stancil, Dae Han Moon, Preston M. Kimoto, Miske’s daughter-­in-law Delia-Anne Fabro ­-Miske, Jarrin Young and Jason K. Yoko ­yama accepted a plea deal from federal prosecutors.

When the U.S. Attorney’s Office indicted Miske on June 18, 2020, on charges of racketeering, conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, robbery, murder-for-hire conspiracy, marketing illegal drugs, firearms, chemical weapons, drugs and bank fraud, they also indicted 10 of his associates.

The Miske criminal enterprise modeled itself after big-city organized crime groups, federal prosecutors told the jury.

Authorities accused the organization of using businesses to further its criminal objectives, including Kama ‘aina Termite & Pest Control, Kama ‘aina Holdings, Hawaii Partners, Kama ‘aina Plumbing and Home Renovations, Kama ‘aina Home Renovations, Makana Pacific Development and the Encore Nightclub, which was formerly known as M Nightclub.

According to federal prosecutors, Miske and the criminal enterprise waged violence against “rivals, competitors and innocent members of the community over a period spanning years, if not decades. In so doing, Miske participated in, directed and facilitated numerous assaults, kidnapping, extortion, the use of firearms, attempted murder and murder for hire.”———Star-Advertiser photographer Jamm Aquino contributed to this report.

[darkmaga-returns]

Julia Gledhill

Nov 04, 2024

Time is running out for Congress to pass the annual defense policy bill. After the election, lawmakers must reconcile the differences between their versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and set the topline for Pentagon spending in fiscal year 2025. When they do, they must strip two measures that will make it easier for contractors to engage in price gouging.

While the House abided by the spending caps Congress established in last year’s debt deal, the Senate added about $25 billion to the president’s budget request for the Pentagon — bringing the department’s topline to a whopping $912 billion. This is excessive, and the increase will not make Americans any safer. Lawmakers should communicate that to those negotiating the final NDAA.

Members of Congress cannot, however, overlook two seemingly benign provisions in the House version of the bill. If retained, Sections 811 and 812 of the House-passed NDAA would bolster contractors’ ability to price gouge the Pentagon — already a significant issue for the military. Just this week the Department of Defense (DOD) Inspector General found that Boeing overcharged the Air Force by nearly a million dollars on various products for the C-17 military transport aircraft. In one case, Boeing overcharged the military for a soap dispenser by nearly 8,000%, more than 80 times the commercial price.

[notjustanyannie]

The White House has its own pharmacy that, until recently, could perhaps best be described as a hot mess, according to a recent investigation report from the Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General.

For years, the White House Medical Unit, run by the White House Military Office, provided the full scope of pharmaceutical services to senior officials and staff—it stored, inventoried, prescribed, dispensed, and disposed of prescription medications, including opioids and sleep medications. However, it was not staffed by a licensed pharmacist or pharmacy support staff, nor was it credentialed by any outside agency.

The operations of this pseudo-pharmacy went as well as one might expect, according to the DoD OIG's alarming investigation report. The investigation was prompted by complaints in May 2018 alleging that an unnamed "senior military medical officer" was engaged in "improper medical practices." This resulted in the OIG's investigation, which included 70 interviews of Military Office officials who worked in the White House between 2009 and 2018 and covers the office's activity until early 2020. However, the investigation heavily focused on prescription drug records and care between 2017 and 2019 during the Trump administration.

During that time, staff at the White House pharmacy kept handwritten records of prescriptions, the OIG found. The records frequently contained errors in medication counts, illegible text, and crossed-out text and lacked medical provider and mandatory patient information. The pharmacy let White House staff pick up over-the-counter drugs from open bins, in violation of Navy medical regulations. It didn't dispose of controlled substances properly, increasing the risk of diversion. Staff provided prescriptions without verifying patients' identities and provided prescriptions to people who were ineligible for care. And it dispensed pricey brand-name products freely, rather than generic equivalents that are considerably cheaper—also a violation of regulations.

In one interview, a White House pharmacy staff member said an unnamed doctor asked "if I could hook up this person with some Provigil as a parting gift for leaving the White House."

Provigil is a drug that treats excessive tiredness and is typically used for patients with narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and other sleep disorders. Brand-name Provigil is 55 times more expensive than the generic equivalent. Between 2017 and 2019, the White House pharmacy spent an estimated $98,000 for Provigil. In that same timeframe, it also spent an estimated $46,500 for Ambien, a prescription sedative, which is 174 times more expensive than the generic equivalent. Even further, the White House Medical Unit spent an additional $100,000 above generic drug cost by having Walter Reed National Military Medical Center fill brand-name prescriptions.

White House baggies

Another White House pharmacy staff member gave clues as to what the staff was doing with those brand-name prescriptions. The staffer told OIG investigators that ahead of overseas trips, the staff would prepare packets of controlled medications to be handed out to White House staff. "And those would typically be Ambien or Provigil and typically both, right. So we would normally make these packets of Ambien and Provigil, and a lot of times they’d be in like five tablets in a zip‑lock bag. And so traditionally, too, we would hand these out. ... But a lot of times the senior staff would come by or their staff representatives... would come by the residence clinic to pick it up. And it was very much a, 'hey, I’m here to pick this up for Ms. X.' And the expectation was we just go ahead and pass it out."

In addition to the excessive costs of Ambien and Provigil, the White House Medical Office may have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on health care for ineligible staff members. White House Medical Unit senior officials estimated that its Executive Medicine clinic has 60 enrolled patients, but it provided care for 6,000 employees, potentially billing the DoD. Between 2017 and 2019, officials also offered senior government officials a patient category code for care at Walter Reed, such that the facility was unable to properly bill them. In the three years, Walter Reed waived over $496,000 in outpatient fees because of these patient categories.

Overall, the OIG concluded that "all phases of the White House Medical Unit’s pharmacy operations had severe and systemic problems due to the unit’s reliance on ineffective internal controls to ensure compliance with pharmacy safety standards."

The report does not mention Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, who served as the physician to the president from 2013 to 2018 under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Stat, which first reported on the OIG's new report, noted that Jackson had been accused of fostering a toxic work environment, engaging in alcohol-fueled misconduct, and misusing Ambien, specifically. OIG received those allegations during the first part of 2018, around the same time when the pharmacy complaints came in. And some of the allegations against Jackson were confirmed by a separate OIG investigation released in 2021.

Though a draft of the new report on the White House pharmacy was completed in 2020, it sat under review in the White House Military Office until July 2023.

The OIG laid out a series of recommendations, including establishing oversight of the White House pharmacy, creating a policy to determine staff eligibility, and implementing pharmaceutical oversight. DoD officials have agreed to the recommendations and are working to implement them, the OIG report noted.