The problem with the right is that they rail against government’s intrusion in the corporate policies that are being used to defraud the American people while they encourage that same government to intrude itself into the bedrooms of men and women of all sexual persuasions, invading their privacy and stealing from them, the freedoms guaranteed under the constitution.
The problem with the right is that it supports the work of billionaire corporations that operate in direct opposition to the needs and wants of the people, who work for them, buy from them and own stock in them. Unless you can give them serious money the GOP has no use for you.
The problem with the Right is its new fantasy version of trimming the fat. The way it works is that they cut $261 billion from food stamps, Medicaid, social services and other programs that affect the poor while setting up tax cuts for those who are already too rich to need the money.
The House Republicans approve $554 billion for the Pentagon. That’s $29 billion more than the Pentagon asked for or knows what to do with. The DOD doesn’t want this money and has not budgeted it to spend but the scum in the House still want to take it out of the mouths of the poor who actually need it to survive. Why? Because they are being paid off by lobbyists for the companies that manufacture war materials and any cut in the defense budget means less profits for these already fat cats.
A perfect example of bloated defense costs that are being supported by the defense industry to the detriment of the rest of the country is the infamous F-35, the world’s most sophisticated and costly aircraft. The plane is a scientific wonder, or so they tell us. Unfortunately the technology that all the lobbyists are having orgasms over doesn’t work. I won’t get into why, the fact is that it is very complicated and very high tech and it has to do with the pilot’s helmet. I know that isn’t part of the plane, but it is. See the whole guidance system works from the helmet and right now, after billions of dollars have been spent the helmet screen on which the pilot depends to get the computer information just shakes too much for the pilot to be able to see and read what’s on it.
They are working on improvements but it looks like they will have to develop a whole new screen. Of course the new screen won’t be able to do all the marvelous things the original one did but what the hell it only cost a few billion bucks. What’s that to the Pentagon and Lockheed.
Despite the problems, the Pentagon is forging ahead with the project and plans to spend more than $1.5 trillion over the next 30 years to make this problem work. Thirty years? 1.5 trillion? By time the problem is solved, the damn plane will be obsolete. In thirty years we may not even be using planes.
Vice Admiral David Venlet tells us that the plane is having “normal teething problems. Sure, if you have Godzilla for a baby. Anyone who has been involved in R&D will tell you that there are many triumphs and failures between conception and completion and there are normally a lot of cost overruns in any experimental process but that’s no reason to make specifically stupid decisions.
The Pentagon knows that there are budget restrictions. It also knows that there are many changes that will have to be made, even at this stage of the game, especially with the new helmet that is being redesigned. Other problems that have shown up in test flights, such as material fatigue and the fact that the tail hook doesn’t work don’t seem to bother anyone in charge. I have an ex-navy pilot friend, a wildly conservative redhead, who will be glad to tell anyone who will listen about the necessity of having a workable tail hook when you land on a carrier. This and many more failings have to be redesigned and readjusted and that is the point I am getting at.
Why am I worried about all these so-called minor problems; maybe because the idiots at the Pentagon are planning to buy 365 planes from Lockheed Martin for $69 billion. The real problem that illustrates their gross stupidity is that they are going to do it now, before all the bugs are worked out. Doesn’t it seem reasonable to wait until after the bugs are worked out, or are they planning to crash $69 billion worth of planes just to find out where the bugs are? I mean these things cost almost $190 million apiece. How about starting out with three or even ten, just to see how many problems really exist and whether or not the solutions to those problems are fiscally or technologically feasible. How about working out the helmet problems before you start ordering $190 million planes that may crash. How about the 365 pilots that are going to flying those experiments? They have families. I guess it doesn’t matter to the big wigs at Lockheed-Martin or the generals at the Pentagon if we kill these kids as long as we keep the money flowing. That’s what the House wants to do. That’s what’s at the basis of the aforementioned bill to add $554 billion to the Pentagon budget. Got to keep the stockholders at Lockheed-Martin happy, got to keep those campaign funds coming.
And if you think things will get better if Romney is elected just take a look at how presidential he can actually be. Last month he jumped all over a crisis that involved blind Chinese dissident,
Chen Guangcheng who was at the time taking refuge in the US Embassy in Bejing.
“…this is a dark day for freedom and it’s a day of shame for the Obama administration,” he babbled. “We are a place of freedom here and around the world and we should stand up and defend freedom whenever it is under attack.”
Well Chen Guangcheng’s freedom was under attack, Mitt and that’s why the current administration stepped in and did something about it. It’s unfortunate that you ran off at the mouth before you found out what was actually going on. Of course we’re now finding that this is SOP for you.
Our state department, headed by Hilary Clinton was breaking its ass trying to help this young man and in fact, it succeeded with the help of John Sexton, Hilary’s close friend who offered Chen a fellowship to NYU and allowed both governments to slip out of what could have been a nasty situation. All Romney did was show that he had no concept of what international negotiation was all about and that he was a dummy who didn’t know when to keep his mouth shut; really great qualifications for being President of the United States.