We can all agree that we should cut down the deficit, right? And most rational people believe that the way to do this is to go through the budget line by line and remove wasteful liberal spending like taking kids to amusement parks that consume literally fractions of pennies out of each precious tax dollar! But Barack Obama is an “outside-the-box” thinker who’s actually looking at the defense budget, and the things it buys, like half a billion dollars worth of R&D for a jet engine that the Pentagon doesn’t want. Why is Obama trying to alienate the last company that still sort of likes him?
The engine is for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, named after Obama’s favorite labor union negotiating technique. GE has been working on an engine for it, and they only need like another $485 million to get it right, they swear, but the Pentagon would rather Pratt & Whitney build it. Both companies have been lobbying like crazy on the issue (GE with a bipartisan team including Dick Gephardt, John Breaux, Don Nickles, and Trent Lott) and buying a bunch of advertising, presumably in Jet Engine Weekly; GE has a lot more money to spend on this, though, possibly because it got some of that sweet bailout cash while the getting it was good.
Now Obama has threatened to veto this year’s defense appropriations bill if it has the money for GE in it, which is poignant and sad because GE was all in favor Obama’s communist stimulus, and its chairman sits on a White House economic advisory panel. And this is the payback they get? No loyalty these days! Oh, also, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is part of the appropriations bill, so a veto would derail that plan, because literally everything that happens in American politics shits on the gays, somehow.
No matter how this dispute plays out, the portion of the Defense Department budget allocated to simply allowing billions of dollars to vanish into thin air will not be affected. [WP/WP]
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Don’t be silly. That money doesn’t vanish. It’s just used to subvert the Republic. Soon we won’t have to worry our pretty little heads about voting.
Libtards who complain about Republicans’ amnesia about how Bush fucked things up need to avoid having amnesia about how Bush fucked things up in/for/around the military.
We need death machines from the sky to express our exceptionalism. It’s in the US Consta-ma-tution, penny’s for lazy Messicans isn’t, troop haters.
Our freedoms depend on a steady flow of taxpayer cash to both GE and P&W. And Xe and Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman and AM General and — what was that other one? — oh yeah, Halliburton. Especially Halliburton.
What do jet engines really do, when you boil it all down? They suck, and they’re loud while they do it. Maybe it’d be worth a few bucks to figure out how to suck quietly.
But how are we going to defend ourselves against a tiny group of guys hiding in caves, not to mention random weddings in countries we’ve conquered; er ah, liberated; without spending as much as the rest of the world combined on our military?
While I’m an avowed fan of Jet Engine Weekly, they’ve also been running those damn ads for (or maybe against? unclear) said jet engine on the Metro interior-of-railcar spots for what seems like at least a year now, since it’s fun to be lobbied-to on your way to work to do lobbying. Metro’s ads seem to always be the same rotation of Pro/Con Jet Engine, High-Definition Studio Photography of Fast Food Product, and Syndicated Network Teevee Sitcom Laffs, so at least you can stay informed while sweltering.
“GE with a bipartisan team including Dick Gephardt, John Breaux, Don Nickles, and Trent Lott”
I misread this to say that Don Rickles was lobbying for GE. Would have explained a few things.
Oooooh, why aren’t the wingnuts furious? Haven’t they heard that the Pentagon has a special Black Budget? Maybe we can convince them that the black budget is racist and needs to be cut?
The fact that the black budget is now nearly the size of the reported budget (maybe?) is a fun un-fact of the age of wars on terra and terrists and ahkaida.
I’m sure all the Congressional Republicans are right now applauding President Obama’s fiscal restraint in using only one engine for this fighter. Uh — anyone? Hello?
If everybody worked for the Great Socialist Defense Industry there would be no unemployment.
[re=626507]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: Jet engines not only suck, but blow as well. The problem is this: moving air = noise.
Let’s just give the $$ to Kevin Costner to build a jet engine that sucks oil out of the gulf (quietly).
[re=626507]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: Ya know, you just might be on to something there.
America’s enemies would likely be rendered defenseless were we to attack them with an army of cocksucking mimes.
Um, won’t cutting the defense budget cause massive layoffs and concomitant economic ripple bad mojo? Heck, we can’t even draw down troop levels without putting thousands of twitchy guys with weapons training out on the street.
My solution? WW-III. Use ‘em or lose ‘em (hey, check me out: I want other people to die for my benefit. I’m a republican! Howdy! Howdy! Howdy!).
how do you reconcile the gayness of Top Gun?
It’s up to you, Sen. Inhofe.
[re=626507]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: So what you’re saying is jet engines are like, oh, Nickelback and any amount of cash to shut them the fuck up is worth it.
[re=626532]Malketeer[/re]: Another solution: CCC, but use the DoD budget for it.
Makes sense to me. Duzitayew?
But, if GE doesn’t finish the engine, how will they keep Dick Cheney’s heart running?
And, I’m sure there is a good the gayez joke in “Joint Strike Fighter,” but I’m just not finding it.
[re=626522]V572625694[/re]: Hey, love your vacuums, Dyson!
Your new “Air Multiplier’s” pretty sweet, too, and considering its price, seems custom made for the defense industry.
DO NOT WANT
Few people know that, back when I was younger, I appeared naked on the centerfold of Jet Engine Weekly. (It was the special issue on Ti superalloys.) When do I get my Senate seat?
great accompanying photo.
“Here comes the FUNCOOKER!”
I was doing some work for GE to help correct a problem they were having with a sensor on their 747 engines. I said during a meeting that in order to test the solution properly I need to have a complete 747 for a couple of months. GE people have no sense of humor.
I haven’t seen the ads in Jet Engine Weekly. I subscribe to Big Fast Planes.
To be fair to GE, Josh should mention that they don’t have a bunch of new money because of the bailout; they also made quite a lot on the sale of their 4th place TV network to KableTown.
Do you know what it takes to sell jet engines? It takes brass balls to sell jet engines, not that stupid thing he has there.
[re=626513]Square Deal[/re]: Don’t forget the Metro spam for all the assclowns that want to get the contract for whatever-the-fuck they call the HUMVEE replacement…the all purpose killing truck or whatever the fuck it is. Last time I was out there they were rocking that pretty hard.
But if you think the Metro around Pentagon stop is bad, it pales in comparison to Huntsville, AL airport. Every interior wall of the entire airport is covered with ads: contractor logos, dudes with labcoats, UAVs blowing the fuck out of
weddingsterror training camps, rockets and missiles and night vision and helicopters PEW PEW PEW. Huntsville makes the Metro look like a peace rally.… a bunch of advertising, presumably in Jet Engine Weekly…
Those ads were supposed to be in Jet so Republicans would never see them.
Where in the constitution does it say we need big fucking airplane engines?
And that Coburn bullshit is just nuts. The Senate doesn’t have a mission statement, so really, if that’s what we’re hanging our hats on, Mr. Coburn, you should disband immediately.
That fucking socialist. I’m tired of the Gubmint stifling private sector innovation by not ponying up enough public money. Maybe profit is tied to risk in Cuba or Kenya, but this is America, dammit.
[re=626507]RoscoePColtraine[/re]: [re=626522]V572625694[/re]: Both GE’s and Pratt’s are are turbofans, like most commercial jet engines, and so more quiet than turbojets. That said both are supposed to be on the loud end so communities that like leaches surround bases where the F-35 will be based are already lining up to get monies from the Federales because of the expected decibel increase.
Sounds like this talk about jet engines is just a bunch of hot air. If Barry had a hair he’d veto the whole defense budget then, to just show them whatfor, he’d head off for six months in Nepal to find his inner path. Well, maybe not such a good idea on that second item. Biden might try and grab the keys to the executive washroom and the repubtards might try for impeachment.
[re=626578]Native of SL UT[/re]: Why do you hate the Second Amendment?
[re=626557]Troubledog[/re]: And yet, according to Wikipedia, Huntsville’s airport has the highest fares in all of the U.S., on average. Mmm, pentagon expense report money!
At any rate, how long until this gets spun into “Obamao hates the military”, even as he’s trying to listen to the Pentagon? Or has it already? I can’t read Breitbart anymore without wanting to drink myself into a stupor, and my liver needs rest.
We could just pack up all our cares and woes and turn the whole mess over to the Burmese Junta.
[re=626541]Lionel Hutz Esq.[/re]: A Joint Strike Fighter and a Republican Senator walked into a bar…
[re=626626]Mad Brahms[/re]: I find it endlessly amusing that Huntsville’s international airport designator is HSV. Because the entirety of northern Alabama is entirely dependent on Gifts That Keep On Giving – earmarks and plus-ups.
You don’t want those boys going rogue, though. Between the shit they got in the NASA footprint and Redstone Arsenal, that is definitely one locality you do NOT want to secede from the Union.
[re=626510]JMP[/re]: No No We have to have these very big expensive things so our troops don’t have to go over there and ….. wait. What?
I suggest the Pentagon funnel that jet money to that Dyson fellow, so that every American can have one of his new-fangled engine cowling cum magical blowing devices in his/her rec room. Money Saved!
[re=626542]Extemporanus[/re]: Sorry. I haven’t been here in a while. I forgot you’re supposed to read all the previous funny fucking posts before making your own attempt at funny fucking posts. This will happen again.
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