[clanker]

http://www.nytimes.c...s...rss&emc=rss

[Bustina di tè]

Serves the military industrial lobby right for not ponying up the campaign cash like the health insurance and Wall Street boyz did.

But, in reality, the guy that let his constituents freeze in his pal Tony Resko's projects doesn't have your best interests at heart.

This post has been edited by Bustina di tè: 29 October 2009 - 12:59 AM

[skeptic2]

Members of both parties did the right thing and killed programs like the F-22 fighter. As is stated in the article, that program was set up to use suppliers from a variety of sources (42 states) to try to augment Congressional support. Sen. McCain and Secretary Gates fought a good fight here. It may not last, but we should all enjoy the fact that the politicians worked together on this one.

[Bustina di tè]

I remember the last round of military spending cuts in the aftermath of Vietnam. All those companies doing business with the Pentagon were going into private sector product manufacturing. Only problem is they couldn't. They had gotten so fat and lazy feeding at the government gravy trough they couldn't figure out how to be competitive or efficiently use the limited amount of resources available to civilian industry.
Reagan turned it around by revitalizing the military industrial complex with welfare programs like Star Warz. The M I also wised up and with the extra Reagan gravy bought up news outlets so Americans wouldn't be regaled with cost over run and $600 toilet seat stories anymore ala 60 Minutes.
The apex of the collusion between the media and the M I has to be the invasion of Iraq for no good reason. It worked so well that many Americans still believe that Saddam was behind 911 and that there are still WMD's hidden in Iraq.
Here's an unintended consequence for you, if there are WMD's in Iraq now that we let the radical Muslims in, do they get to use them on us? As bad as he was Saddam wasn't a suicidal fanatic.

This post has been edited by Bustina di tè: 29 October 2009 - 10:44 AM

[quincy39]

$356,000,000 per plane.
For a plane that had to stay well above small arms fire since it's armor was so weak.
For a plane that it's hi-tech skin was vulnerable to rain.
For a plane that couldn't communicate with any other vessel other than another F-22.
For a plane that needed 30 hours of maintenance per one hour fly time.
For a plane that suffered a critical failure every 1.7 hours of fly time.
For a plane that had no quality control of the parts manufactured in 44 other locations and had to be retools and hand worked on site for actually assembly on the plane.

And we have more than 180 remaining in our inventory.
BTW...the F-22 project began in the Star Wars days. Yep. Really good investment of our military budget. Kind of like KBR and their installations of shower facilities killing our enlisted. They get repaid to fix the job when they murdered our military personnel. And they keep getting contracts.

[Bustina di tè]

It's the Washington Money-go-Round, a member of congress steers a fat contract to, or writes law benefiting a special interest group and in return gets campaign money to get re-elected so they can steer more toward the contributor.
The "journalists" in the media are all bought and paid for too, those on cable even more so, so don't count on them for the truth about it.

[quincy39]

It's the Washington Money-go-Round, a member of congress steers a fat contract to, or writes law benefiting a special interest group and in return gets campaign money to get re-elected so they can steer more toward the contributor.
The "journalists" in the media are all bought and paid for too, those on cable even more so, so don't count on them for the truth about it.

Don't forget about the corporate sponsored grassroots groups. And I do mean to attack both sides of the political spectrum over this. Nothing like dishing out Kool-Aide to people that will never bother to research something for themselves to enrage the public. It always pays to know the people behind a movement and who they are working for. I prefer to go to more than one place for information. Too many out there are willing to stop once they find the opinion that matches their view. No matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.