It’s a brutal world out there, and the news reminds us of it every day… every minute, really. When we started News To Make You Furious it was to draw attention to horrible situations that weren’t getting enough attention. Now it seems the news is a constant grinding on our psyches, a constant drip of acid into our souls, a media leech sucking every iota of joy or satisfaction from our lives. We think everyone needs a break.

With that in mind, this month we bring you a strange story. It starts with yet another reason to be Furious, but then veers into an actual response by government officials finding bending to years of public pressure. Hooray! Something to finally be happy about! But don’t worry. The story doesn’t end there, the break will be over, and everyone will have reason to be Furious once again.

Update 4/4/2019

Here’s an update from THE FUTURE… the audit is done, and it went about as well as expected. Two articles for you…

Here’s what the Pentagon’s first-ever audit found, Aaron Mehta in Defense News, Nov 2018

Pentagon fails its first-ever audit, official says, Idrees Ali and Mike Stone on Reuters, Nov 2018

…and there’s much more out there now about it. Spoiler alert: Nothing has changed as a result of the audit, but it’s only 5 months out. We now return you to your originally scheduled article, from September of 2018…

The bad news first…

We’ll start where we always start, with News To Make You Furious. The Pentagon spent $590 billion in FY2017, will spend $681.1 billion under Trump, and has over $2.2 TRILLION in assets. While yes, that in itself is enough to make us Furious, that’s not the clincher. The augmenter of anger here is that this swollen river of money, the breast pump for the corporate teat, has never been audited. ‘Defense’ spending may be a partisan issue, but responsible stewardship of that money isn’t. Groups on the Left and Right called for a Pentagon audit for many years, and though some spending probes were conducted, the necessary full audit didn’t happen.

Report: Pentagon buried audit that exposed $125 billion in bureaucratic waste by Catherine Garcia in The Washington Post, Dec 2016

The Pentagon Money Pit: $6.5 Trillion in Unaccountable Army Spending and No DoD Audit by Project Censored, Apr 2017

The Pentagon Has Never Been Audited & Trillions Of Dollars Are Unaccounted For. Where Has It Gone? By Kalee Brown on Collective Evolution, Apr 2017

Pentagon’s Audit Readiness Still a Work in Progress by Charles Clark on Government Executive, Feb 2017

The Pentagon has never been audited. That’s astonishing by Thomas Hedges in The Guardian, May 2017

We Need to Audit the Pentagon by Mandy Dmithberger on the Project On Government Accountability, Mar 2017

Will the Pentagon Ever Be Able to Be Audited? by Mandy Dmithberger on the Project On Government Accountability, Mar 2017

How to Disappear Money, Pentagon-Style by William Hartung, The Nation, May 2016

Audit reveals Army’s trillion-dollar accounting gaffes by Jamie Crawford on CNN Politics, Aug 2016

Grassley: Pentagon’s Audit Readiness Remains an Elusive Goal, floor speech by Sen Chuck Grassley, Jul 2016

Then the good news…

Finally, in December 2017, the Pentagon announced that it would perform a first-in-history agency-wide financial audit. Hooray! Government responsiveness and transparency! Take THAT, you cynics!

Pentagon Announces First-Ever Audit Of The Department Of Defense by Bill Chappell on NPR’s The Two-Way, Dec 2017

Pentagon is prepared to spend over $900 million in first audit by Aaron Mehta in Defense News, Jan 2018

Now the worse news…

We’re about to get what we’ve asked for; all the dirty details on an agency emblematic of corruption, waste, fraud, and hush-hush spending. The results are already scaring people and they aren’t even out yet.

Pentagon Audit: “There Will Be Unpleasant Surprises”, by Steven Aftergood from the Federation of American Scientists, Jul 2018

What to Expect from the Pentagon’s First-Ever Audit by Christopher Preble on Defense One, Jan 2018

Pentagon Audit Shows Logistical Arm Of Military Can’t Explain Where $800 Million Went, Interview by Mary Louise Kelly on All Things Considered, Feb 2018

Why the Pentagon Doesn’t Know How Much Anything Costs by Joe Pappalardo in Popular Mechanics, Jun 2018

How $21 Trillion in U.S. Tax Money Disappeared. “Full Scope Audit” of the Pentagon by David DeGraw on Global Research, May 2018