The U.S.’s Stealth Fighter Is Too Heavy and Slow, So the Pentagon Made Its Performance Tests Easier

Wait. Let me find my ‘shocked’ face. I know it’s in here somewhere…

“At this point, the Pentagon is literally rewriting its rule book so that the dumbed-down superjet will pass muster. The Defense Department’s annual weapons-testing report reveals that the military actually adjusted the performance specifications for the consistently underperforming line of F-35 fighter jets. In other words, they couldn’t get the jets to do what they were supposed to do, so they just changed what they were supposed to do.”

Further evidence that our acquisition system is broken. The contractors submit bids to RFP’s (request for proposal) for weapon systems that are gross underbids because they know that WHEN they have cost overruns, the government will simply bail them out. Much of this comes from the incestuous relationship between lobbyists, contractors, the military, and government. It is costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, and compromising the defense of our nation.

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 By Adam Clark Estes

The Pentagon’s pursuit of the Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter jet has been a heartbreaking one. If you’re a tax payer, the program’s estimated $1 trillion price tag probably breaks your heart a little bit. If you’re an aviation enthusiast, the constant whittling away of the do-it-all aircraft’s features, which in many cases actually amounts to adding weight and taking away maneuverability, must hurt a little bit, too.

If you’re just an everyday American, though, you should be downright shattered that after a decade and a fortune spent, the F-35 will actually be more vulnerable than the aircraft it’s replacing. At this point, the Pentagon is literally rewriting its rulebook so that the dumbed-down super jet will pass muster.

Obama’s Actions Drowning Out His Words

How does that old saying go?  Oh, yes.  Actions speak more loudly than words.

Return to the Article

July 31, 2009

Obama’s revealing body language (updated and expanded))

Thomas Lifson
This picture truly is worth at least a thousand words.

I am stunned that the official White House Blog published this picture and that it is in the public domain. The body language is most revealing.

Sergeant Crowley, the sole class act in this trio, helps the handicapped  Professor Gates down the stairs, while Barack Obama, heedless of the infirmities of his friend and fellow victim of self-defined racial profiling, strides ahead on his own. So who is compassionate? And who is so self-involved and arrogant that he is oblivious?

In my own dealings with the wealthy and powerful, I have always found that the way to quickly capture the moral essence of a person is to watch how they treat those who are less powerful. Do they understand that the others are also human beings with feelings? Especially when they think nobody is looking.

Hat tip: Rick Richman

Update from Thomas Lifson:

I think this photo constitutes another major Obama blunder.

As some AT commentators point out, this picture becomes a metaphor for ObamaCare. The elderly are left in the back, with only the kindness of the Crowleys of the world, the stand up guys, to depend on. The government has other priorities.

One of the major subtexts of the health care debate involves the public’s fear of indifferent, powerful bureaucrats ruling their lives. It is one thing to wait in line at the DMV to find out which other line you should wait in, in order to begin the process of waiting for multiple bureaucrats to go through the motions of processing your request. I have spent entire afternoons going through this process.

But when we get to health care, waiting often means enduring pain and dysfunction longer than necessary, sometimes a worsening of the condition, and sometimes death.

That’s why I think this image will have genuine resonance. It captures something that older Americans in particular can relate to. The President presses ahead with a program that will tell them to take painkillers instead of getting that artificial hip.

At every stage of the entire Gates affair, Obama has provided a revealing tell. The “acted stupidly” blunder revealed that he automatically blames the police and thinks they really are stupid to begin with. It didn’t trigger a single alarm bell in his mind as he figured out what to say.

Then, the non-apology apology revealed an arrogant man who cannot do what honest people do: admit it when they make a mistake.

Now at stage three, the beer photo op looked OK. It didn’t turn into a disaster.

But then in a small moment that nobody in the White House had the brains to understand, Obama goes and send a body language message like this.

I think he is going to get deeper and deeper into trouble. He is no longer repeating the familiar scripts dreamed up for the campaign. He was a master performer.

But when he goes improv, as a president must do, he lets his true character show. This helps widen the level of doubt that Obama is the same guy a majority voted for.  Those doubts can only grow.

Andrew McCarthy has assembled an overwhelming case that Obama has lied about who he is. I predict that more and more Americans will become open to the argument that they have been had by a sophisticated and ruthless effort to foist a phony on America.

Update from Clarice Feldman

A nice comparison of the character of the two most recent presidents. George Bush with Senator Robert Byrd:

Update:

We know the picture is really getting to the left. They avoid any actual facts or logic, instead retreating into insults. Soros-financed Media Matters calls me a “fringe blogger.”

Andrew Sullivan calls this blog “inane,”providing no analysis or examples, just a one word insult.

Quite a bit of email from those complaining about my interpretation. One example, with my response here.

Eric Etheridge of the New York Times takes note of this blog entry, and provides no snark, while reprinting the picture and my early commentary.

Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/07/obamas_revealing_body_language.html at August 04, 2009 – 08:12:17 PM EDT

HR 1388 GIVE Act Aimed at “Re-Educating” and Indoctrinating Your Children

I started reading (yes, actually reading) the WHOLE bill last night. I’ve gotten about half way through it so far, and what I’ve seen so far SCARES THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF ME!

Here are some of things that scare me about what I’ve read so far:

• “Service Learning”: Thinly veiled wording for indoctrination. This follows the model of Soviet Russia with their “re-education camps.” Though the original language of this bill called the re-education/indoctrination centers “camps,” they have since changed the names to “campuses.”
• “Service Corps”: The more I read, the more these look like the basis for the mobs/militias that Obama mentioned in his campaign, but quickly covered up. He said he would form a security force funded as well as the military. Every dictator and despot ruler has had the same thing: a paramilitary force to “persuade” citizens to bend to the will of the despot.
• Backdoor attack on home schooling: The more I read, the more it becomes apparent that Obama intends to make attendance in public, government run schools mandatory. In recent years there have been increasing attacks on those who wish to home school their children in order to teach more conservative values to them. The communists/socialists have known for a long time that if you control the children, you will eventually bypass the parents and control the society.
• Prohibition on any display or exercise of religion: Sect 125 (a)(7) reads thusly…
  

  ‘(a) Prohibited Activities- A participant in an approved national service position under this subtitle may not engage in the following activities:
  (7) Engaging in religious instruction, conducting worship services, providing instruction as part of a program that includes mandatory religious instruction or worship, constructing or operating facilities devoted to religious instruction or worship, maintaining facilities primarily or inherently devoted to religious instruction or worship, or engaging in any form of religious proselytization.

The only way they’ll take my kids to these camps is over my cold, dead body.

I’m uncovering more and more bad stuff in this bill. Please read as much of this, and every other bill, as you have the opportunity to read. Expose what our corrupt politicians are trying to keep in the dark.

Read HR1388 here:
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1388/text

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AIG Bill: Counterproductive and Unconstitutional

Do you think they’ll stop their “collections” with the AIG execs? If you do, I have some beachfront property in Florida I’ll sell you when the tide goes down. Once Obama and Co. un-cork the bottle that’s holding the tax genie, that genie will likely never go back in the bottle. Is what they’re attempting to do constitutional? Constitution, shmonstitution. Who needs rules? Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank and company don’t care about the constitution or us peasants. They have an agenda, constitution be damned.

The AIG (And Everyone Else) Bill: Counterproductive and Unconstitutional

Posted By Rory Cooper On March 20, 2009 @ 11:43 am In Ongoing Priorities | 33 Comments

Whom It Really Targets

• The Hit List: H.R. 1586 retroactively taxes AIG employees who are due deferred compensation and would tax that compensation at a 90% rate [1].
• A Much Broader Sweep: Going forward, the bill also imposes a 90% federal tax rate [1] on anyone employed by a company receiving $5 billion in TARP funds who has a family income over $250,000, individual income over $125,000 (if single or married but filing separately), or performance pay larger than adjusted gross income.
• What Defines a Bonus? Under H.R. 1586, a “bonus [1]” is any amount over an employee’s base salary, including retention and performance pay and even deferred compensation. But compensation in banking and finance is heavily geared towards performance, with relatively lower base salaries.
• Counterproductive Policy: While taxpayer money shouldn’t be spent on excessive bonus compensation, broad-based pay caps and punitive clawbacks will hurt performance and slow economic recovery. The government is ill-suited to set private-sector pay scales and risks causing more financial damage.
• Your Branch Manager: Anecdotally, a “Regional Branch Manager” for Bank of America who makes $250,000 plus bonuses for outstanding customer service at his branches would be taxed at 90% due to this bill.

The Real Problem, Plain and Simple

• How We Got Here: Senator Chris Dodd would like you to forget [2] that he inserted specific language recognizing AIG’s executive compensation into the $800 billion stimulus bill, which Finance Chairman Max Baucus now admits [3] nobody read.
• Government Bailouts: This is the inevitable result of government bailouts, which turn private concerns (such as compensation agreements between private parties) into public business, bringing politics where it is likely to do damage.
• Hasty Bills Make Disastrous Policy: The very fact that this problem was created by a mega-bill that wasn’t properly reviewed before passage—and is now being “corrected” by a hastily put together bill that hasn’t been properly reviewed—is beyond ironic.
• Avoid This in the Future: To avoid further entanglement of the federal government and taxpayers in routine business matters, President Obama and Congress should reject further bailouts and insist those already done be unwound as quickly as possible.

It’s Not Constitutional, Plain and Simple

• Bill of Attainder: The Constitution prohibits Congress [4] from punishing individuals, which is the role of the justice system. This prevents legislative tyranny and is essential to ensuring that those accused of wrongs receive due process and can mount a defense. It also encourages “sound legislation,” which is not accomplished by legislators being whipped into a frenzy and interfering in personal and economic affairs.
• An End Run? Congress added more taxes to the bill to get around the bar of bills of attainder, but it can’t make an unconstitutional act permissible by cloaking it in the guise of a tax bill.
• Taxation Not the Answer: Congress is prohibited [4] from using the tax code as a weapon of convenience against a select group of unfavorable people, even when the political opportunity exists.