Randy, I don't reply too often because I check so many blogs that I cannot reply to them all. I guess that I pressed the wrong buttons in my last reply, so I wll try again. I read someplace (probably in the Washington Post) that our government agencies are spending so much on "intelligence" that they cannot tell congress how many companies are funded to do intelligence work, or even what work these companies are performing. MZM International is a good example. This company went from a start up in 1993 to a budget of $350 million until these recent scandals (Cunningham, hookergatee, etc.).The government cannot solve our intelligence failures by throwing money at the problem. Neither can the government rapidly find cures for diseases, such as aids, cancer, etc., or solve deficiencies in our educational system by throwing money at those problems. President Eisenhower was correct when he criticized the military industrial complex. I guess that Cheney and his neocons would call Ike a traitor. I know that the John Burch Society concluded that Ike was either a "traitor" or a "stupid fool".
Finally, most of our erroneous intelligence on Iraq came from Douglas Feith and his Pentagon Office of Special plans. They were stupid enough to believe (or just wanted to believe) the Iraqi Chalibi aand his human intelligence sources. Chalibi and his Iranian friends must have been just overjoyed when the USA invaded Iraq based on Shiite intelligence.

Danny lacks a brain

What is 1993? Was it one of those years back when we weren't responding to terrorism? Was it before 9/11? Was it before all the unanswered attacks during the Clinton admin.? Danny, please start reading your comments before you post them, you are making it more and more obvious what a confused high school kid you are. We're in a world where intelligence is probably the most important spending we do... And that has NOTHING to do with Sanders wanting to cut it all these years. He wasn't just voting not to increase it, he's voted to cut it. Also, take in to account the size of the economy, not just the dollar amount. You know how you libs love your "record deficit" line? Well I've got news for you, as a percentage of the economy, it's pretty normal.

As for Iraq intell... dude, you are such an obnoxious broken record, haven't I told you not to talk that played out trash around here before? Was it "shiite intelligence" when Clinton made the argument before attacking in 98 after making regime change our policy? Was it shiite intell that all the top Dems, including those that call Bush a liar today, cited when they spent over a decade making a stronger WMDs in Iraq case?

I just gotta comment on this matter again. Sorry about my typo on the 1993 date, but you know what I meant . Funny how the Republicans always complain about the deficit, whatever the amout, when they are in the minority party. But when the Republicans are in charge, they and their supporters come out with this lame excuse about the deficit size when compared with the GNP. Read Woodward's book "The Agenda", which is about Clinton's economics policy during his first two years. Clinton actually proposed a middle class tax cut. The Republicans and conservative Democrats put the administration on the so-called pay-go plan, that is no spending increases without revenue increases, and no tax cuts without budget cuts. It is interesting to read what Clinton's political advisor, James Carvelle, thought of Clinton's plan to balance the budget (same as Cheney's, budget deficits don't matter).
Getting back to intelligence budgets, it is the management of that money and the interpretation of the intelligence that counts. We used to spent 90% of the intelligence budget on the east block countries during the cold war. The cold war is over. Give us some comparisons on the intelligence budget in 1990 and 2000.

What are you talking about Danny lacks a brain? I didn't say anything about 1993 being a typo... I was mocking your usage of a year that existed in a world before "terrorism" was part of everyone's daily lives. It years before most of the most notable terror events in the world, and 8 full years before 9/11. Your whining about how much was spent on intell at the time is just stupid, that is what I was saying about 1993. Your claim that it was a typo (without explaining what you meant to say) proves exactly my point I repeatedly make to you... you don't know what you're talking about.. you just regurgitate crap you hear, and when challenged you say "well, maybe not exactly what I said, but....". You probably won't even get what I'm saying, because admittedly it's hard to put in to words.. But just think about how weak minded it makes you when I mock your "1993" comment and because you don't have any idea what you were saying to begin with, you backtrack and call it a typo? lol, nice.

No one denies that spending needs to be better managed... It needs to be better managed in all areas. But what does that all have to do with Bernie voting to cut intelligence? Oh I forgot, you're a liberal and this is just the usual liberal diversion game, which is why you through the Iraq broken record crap in that I shattered, and you just bounce back by totally ignoring it.