This article first appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, May 22, 2015:
Scarcely a year after his surprise inauguration as the new president of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA), former Pentagon chief Robert Gates told BSA leadership on Thursday to prepare to allow practicing homosexuals into leadership positions or face threats that could divide, splinter, and destroy the organization. He said:
A U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky VH-34D presidential helicopter (BuNo 147201) on the South Lawn of the White House (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This article was first published at The McAlvany Intelligence Advisor on Monday, May 12, 2014:
When Ike occupied the White House, he asked his staff about using a military helicopter to fly him to his summer home in Pennsylvania. A Sikorsky UH-34 Seahorse was selected as the aircraft of choice: no creature comforts, no air-conditioning, no toilet.
In 1958, the helicopter was upgraded, and then again in 1961. By 1978, the Marines and the Army were flying VH-3As, which were further upgraded in 1987. By 2000, even these upgrades were falling behind the technology curve, and by 2009 the White House helicopter stable included 11 VH-3Ds and eight VH-60Ns (the V stood for VIP).
The 9/11 attacks changed everything.
UTC Sikorsky logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It didn’t take long for the skeptics to scoff at the costs of the latest effort to upgrade the fleet of presidential helicopters announced by the Defense Department on Wednesday, May 7. They say the $1.2 billion contract awarded to Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation will be just the beginning.
There are at least two reasons to be skeptical: the open-ended nature of the White House requirements and recent history. The Department of Defense outlined its requirements, stating that Marine Helicopter Squadron One which currently operates 19 presidential helicopters, must provide
Safe and timely transportation for the President and Vice President of the United States, heads of state and others as directed by the White House Military Office.
In addition, each aircraft must be equipped with various self-defense features such as bullet-proof glass and body panels and specialized communications equipment that allows the president to maintain “critical command functions” while airborne. Each needs to be large enough to carry up to 14 passengers and several thousand pounds of baggage while being small enough to operate from the White House lawn.
Each must have a minimum range of 300 miles and carry a full complement of defensive countermeasures to thwart heat-seeking and radar-directed missiles and also be hardened against an EMP (electromagnetic pulse), either from an enemy or from the sun. It must be able to send and receive encrypted communications and hold secure teleconferences while in flight.
And each must have air-conditioning and a toilet.
Under the contract Sikorsky promises to deliver two prototypes by 2016, with another 21 fully operational aircraft six years later.
Several questions arise. First,
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Now that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has unveiled his “Path to Prosperity” budget, nearly all discussion is focusing on the details and not on the proper role of government. Writing in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Ryan said that “our budget … cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president’s budget over the next 10 years, reduces the debt as a percentage of the economy, and puts the nation on a path to actually pay off our national debt.” He also said that it
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
Even with only modest cuts in the continuing resolution bill offered by the GOP-controlled House of Representatives, it is highly unlikely to see the light of day when the Senate returns from recess, just before the March 4th deadline. Despite strong rhetoric from House Speaker John Boehner who said “When we say we’re going to cut spending, read my lips. We are going to cut spending, ” this reminded one of the identical words (“read my lips”) uttered by Republican Presidential candidate George H. W. Bush in 1988, which cost him his chance for re-election in 1992 when he voted for higher taxes the year before. Boehner’s words also generated a protest of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who accused Boehner of
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As calls for cuts in the defense budget increased, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates knew what he would have to do: throw the cutters a bone, and then dig in against any further reductions. By admitting that he could shave $78 billion out of the defense budget over the next five years, Gates then went to work defending any further suggested incursions into the future spending plans by the military-industrial complex.
Image by Poster Boy NYC via Flickr
On Tuesday, the quiet subterranean fishing expedition by the government into the WikiLeaks document disclosures last fall came to light for the first time in the courtroom of U. S. Magistrate Judge Theresa Carroll Buchanan in Alexandria, Virginia. In its search for incriminating evidence, the government demanded that Twitter release information about three suspects linked to WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange:
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Once Obamacare is repealed by the House, the attention of the 112th Congress will turn to the question of where government spending can be cut for the largest immediate impact. Several observers have weighed in with their thoughts, including Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe of FreedomWorks, who have an article in today’s online Wall Street Journal. After reviewing the fiscal hot water the republic is already in, and discussing attempts to re-set government spending back to “base lines” such as 2009, 2008, or 2007, the authors get down to business.
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