Morning Briefing: Pentagon Buries $125 Billion in Waste, Cannabis Coffee Buzz, Biden 2020?

President-elect Donald Trump ran a campaign that, with the shorthand of "drain the swamp," promised to rid Washington of insiders and the corruption that goes with people who know how to work "the system." He certainly has his work cut out for him.

A new Washington Post investigation found that the Department of Defense has attempted to hide an internal study commissioned by Pentagon leadership that shows administrative waste is astronomically worse than it originally thought. The report, which was delivered in January 2015, revealed that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter — about $125 billion — of its $580 billion budget on overhead and business operations such as accounting and human resources rather than its core mission of "protect[ing] the security of our country."

Top Stories

Pentagon Buries Evidence of $125 billion in Bureaucratic Waste: "The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations amid fears Congress would use the findings as an excuse to slash the defense budget, according to interviews and confidential memos obtained by The Washington Post." (The Washington Post)

Tech Companies Move to Target Terrorist Propaganda Online: "Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube are joining forces to more quickly identify the worst terrorist propaganda and prevent it from spreading online. The new program announced Monday would create a database of unique digital 'fingerprints' to help automatically identify videos or images the companies could remove." (AP)

Cannabis Coffee Pods Are About to Become Compatible With Millions of Household Keurig Machines: "Early risers seeking a little extra from their morning buzz will soon be able to turn to their Keurig brewers. A San Diego, California, company called Brewbudz says it is preparing to introduce cannabis coffee pods to the market, and promises they’ll be compatible with the ubiquitous single-serve coffee machines." (Quartz)

House G.O.P. Signals Break With Trump Over Tariff Threat: "House Republican leaders signaled on Monday that they would not support President-elect Donald J. Trump’s threat to impose a heavy tax on companies that move jobs overseas, the first significant confrontation over the conservative economic orthodoxy that Mr. Trump relishes trampling." (The New York Times)

From the Twitterverse

You decide: Is Joe Biden — or is he not — running for president in 2020?

Today's Numbers

• Amazon could open 2,000 grocery store concept stores after testing Amazon Go.
• Netflix plans to double its 30 original offerings next year.
• Here's the breakdown of Golden State Warriors' Klay Thompson's 60-point game last night.
• Expedia's IT guy pulled in $300,000 by hacking his own executives.

Quote of the Day

GOP pollster Tony Fabrizio on Trump, ideology and the 2016 election:

"Donald Trump is post-ideological. His movement transcends ideology."

Allen McDuffee is a politics and policy reporter, investigative journalist, blogger and podcast host. He has written for The Atlantic, Wired and The Washington Post. Follow him on Twitter: @AllenMcDuffee

Photo credit: David B. Gleason via Flickr Commons