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$3B taxpayer’s money already down the drain.
The Pentagon has issued a stop work order for a controversial second engine for a futuristic jet fighter, calling the engine, which has already cost billions, a “waste of taxpayer money” – but General Electric has vowed to press forward with development using its own funds.
GE has taken a never-say-die approach to the engine. GE chairman Jeffrey Immelt wrote a note to aviation workers after the February House vote to stop funding that said, “GE will continue to press our case in the U.S. Senate and elsewhere.”
General Electric has already shelled out millions in relentless pursuit of the engine contract, and its most recent vow to fight on is the latest evidence of the company’s aggressive strategy for Washington influence. It is an approach that has helped GE become the nation’s top corporate spender on lobbying, spending more than $238 million on lobbyists over the past 12 years.
An ABC News review of General Electric lobbying found that the company has more than angels on its side — it has an arsenal of former congressional leaders from both parties, including such well-known figures as former Sen. Trent Lott and former Rep. Dick Gephardt.
Last year, GE also hired Barack Obama’s former campaign manager, David Plouffe, as a consultant, according to Plouffe’s recently filed financial disclosure forms. It is unclear what Plouffe was hired to do, though his relationship with the president and senior White House staff is close to unparalleled. Plouffe is now back working as a senior advisor to Obama.
The DOD doesn’t want it, saying the Lockheed fighter is fine with the Pratt & Whitney engine. Congress doesn’t want it, but GE by golly is going to spend more millions lobbying to get the contract.
Why has Congress spent $3,000,000,000 on development of an engine the military says it doesn’t want? See the article for the video.
The F-35 looks to be a disaster for export. The French Rafale has performed brilliantly in Libya, the Eurofighter has had zero problems doing CAP for the NATO no fly zone, and other planes like the Typhoon and Super Etendard and even the older Harrier have proved themselves in this conflict. It seems like the F-35 is looking more and more like an overpriced 5th wheel of a plane in the world arms market.
Bobbo – I wasn’t citing any specific reference but using my often fragile memory. (Funny I can remember what I prescribed for a patient two or three years ago but can’t remember what I ate for dinner last night!) It’s nearly 2 a.m. here and I’m not inclined to do the research necessary to back up my statement. However, a quick google did turn up an interesting article in the Boston Review from 2008 that addresses the matter: “Moreover, the conventional story does not explain why the drift is so often to the left. On that question, Robert Bork provides a popular answer: justices “tend to drift to the left in response to elite opinion.” According to his theory, judges come to associate with and respond to “the intellectual class . . . dominant in, for example, the universities, the media, church bureaucracies, and foundation staffs.” Once seated on the court, right-leaning judges eventually adopt “the intelligentsia’s attitude, which is to the cultural left of the American people.” http://bostonreview.net/BR31.1/hansonbenforado.php
But that’s just one paragraph. If you have the time, I suggest reading it in it’s entirety. Quite interesting.
Good night.
Bobbo – I had clicked on a link but not read it. I took a look before closing it and found another interesting article from last year on FindLaw.com http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dorf/20100421.html
This one is pretty much about Justice Stevens but addresses the issue of how the judges often evolve to the left.
I am really tired. Might fall asleep at my desk. Does that qualify me to be an air traffic controller?
Enjoy.
>Fueled by corporate dollars, the GOP and Teabaggers installed a Supreme Court allowing UNLIMITED for corporations to pick and choose their government and legislation.
What brilliant logic. So any favoritism and corruption by Democrats towards Democratic donors, is now the fault of Republicans. ‘It’s hard out here for a pimp.’
You have to extend your logic all the way though. Really any such actions are the fault of liberals and the ACLU for pushing so hard for the First Amendment, that the Supreme Court ended up supporting corporate free speech.
The corporations have the game hopelessly rigged.
At least we can tax employee wages. However, the problem with that is they like to move jobs out of the country and import via “free trade” with Mexico.
Our trade policy sucks and needs a bit of protectionism. And we grant patents — aka exclusivity to these corporations and they use it move jobs out of the country.
At some point, they’ll rethink all of this.
Tax breaks to favored corporations is at the expense of less powerful corporations and is not really a good thing.
Yet, we have a unresponsive government that likes to red tape everything to death with overhead and regulations.
I would like to believe that eventually this will get straightened out … but it won’t be soon.
Still, things I thought were long overdue happen everyday — like massive Muslim uprising against repressive and corrupt governments — and airstrikes crippling a repressive bully regime like Libya [sure Obama’s clarity of mission sucks, but the important thing is that Libya’s tanks and air power is destroyed so they cannot kill civilians as easily].
Crazy new world … and to think 10 years ago some news reporters wrote an article called “The End of History” as if the world would be in permanent stasis.
Not so! 9/11, Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, Afghanistan, Iran, the iPhone, Android, Redbox, iTunes, Ubuntu, Firefox then Chrome, Mortgage Meltdown, Twitter, Assange, Union thugs in Wisconsin and the beat goes on.