the contributors to the Re-elect McCain for Senate campaign.
Retire these GOP/e B@$@$T$; don't show any respect
for their previous actions..deeds.
Posted on 09/24/2013 10:33:14 AM PDT by ClaytonP
Days after the U.S. Defense Department signaled an improving relationship with Lockheed Martin Corp. over the cost of the F-35 fighter jet, Sen. John McCain called the program “one of the great national scandals.”
McCain, a Republican from Arizona and the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, was speaking during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to consider the nominations of several White House appointments, including Deborah Lee James to become the next secretary of the Air Force.
McCain criticized the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as the government’s first trillion-dollar acquisition program (including sustainment costs). Its repeated cost overruns “have made it worse than a disgrace,” he said. Despite recent efforts to reduce prices on the next batch of aircraft, “it’s still one of the great, national scandals that we have ever had, as far as the expenditure of taxpayers’ dollars are concerned,” he said.
McCain, who also noted that the Navy’s new USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier is more than $2 billion over budget, was responding to James’ comment that the current budget environment is “chaotic” and makes planning difficult.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, who oversees the F-35 program, this week said the relationship between the service and Lockheed — the plane’s manufacturer and the world’s biggest defense contractor — along with engine-maker Pratt & Whitney, part of United Technologies Corp., is “orders of magnitude” better than it was a year ago.
“I’m encouraged by where we are today,” he said Sept. 17 at the Air Force Association’s Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition at National Harbor, Md. “I’d like to be a little further along.”
The comments were a stark contrast to those Bogdan made at the same forum last year, when he called the relationship the “worst I’ve ever seen.” This year, Bogdan indicated his previous remarks were deliberate. “I threw a hand grenade into the crowd … that was intended,” he said.
At the hearing, McCain also pressed James on the issue of sexual assaults in the military. The Air Force, in particular, has faced criticism over a spate of high-profile sexual assault scandals.
Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, the chief of the Air Force’s sexual assault prevention and response branch, was arrested and charged with sexual battery in May after allegedly groping a woman outside a strip club near the Pentagon. A month earlier, Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, commander of the 3rd Air Force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, ignited a firestorm when he overturned the conviction of Lt. Col. James Wilkerson III, a fellow fighter pilot who was accused of fondling the victim as she slept in his guest bedroom.
“Can this committee have confidence that this is one of your highest priorities and that you can come to this committee and present to all of us a plan and a policy that will put this issue on a sharp decline and lead to a renewed confidence in the American people that young women who join the United States Air Force will have confidence that they will not be subject to a sexual assault?” McCain asked.
“This will be one of my top priorities,” James replied. “I intended to work on it very, very hard and I absolutely welcome the opportunity to do that.”
“Got any ideas?” McCain interrupted.
“One I put forth … is to hold commanders more accountable, to include in their performance assessments a measure of the climate within their unit and how well they’re doing,” she replied. “Being a commander — it’s not an entitlement, it’s an honor and a privilege, and if they’re not living up to the measure, they need to go.”
James most recently worked as an executive at the defense contractor SAIC Inc. and also served as a former assistant secretary of defense.
I guess not enough of the F-35 contracts are in Arizona.
You are right that we have way too many Cabinet Secretaries. Why do we have a Defense Department AND Homeland Security ? Add to that Veterans Affairs, which should clearly be folded back into Defense/War.
guessing black lesbian right there.
Even at 200 million,it would be worth it to have McCain ride one into the ground.
3 letters...
I.A.M.
Shoddy work, incompetence, laziness...all cost the manufacturers in OT and rework.
Not to say the complexity of the program isn’t any help either...but from my experience with the actual workers, they flat don’t give a damn.
It’s the “evil corporation” that they’re out to “punish” for employing them.
The answer is fairly simple: McCain can blackmail the weapons manufacturers who aren’t on board his money train. He can’t extract any money from the stooge in the white house.
What the hell would McCain know about a fighter jet? Other than how to crash them. And I’m not talking about the one he got shot down in because he didn’t follow procedures.
What the hell would McCain know about a fighter jet? Other than how to crash them. And I’m not talking about the one he got shot down in because he didn’t follow procedures.
Juan ought to know about scandals - he is one.
Well Mac, it would help if there were a consistant set of requirements and a predictable funding profile.
Actually much of the training and basing of squadrons for the F-35 will be in Arizona. They doubled the number of Squadrons at Luke about three months ago.
I don’t think I have heard of a military program in decades that Mclame did not push to cancel.
Yeah but he wanted ALL of them and now he is pouting because FL got the first one.
Whatever the outcome—please do not let McCain try to fly one.
He crashed more airplanes than Soviet missiles, before he finally crashed one and got taken prisoner.
That’s what happens when they make exceptions for an Admirals boy who was near the bottom of his class.
I do not like McCain but really? The f-35 is a very trouble program. Way over budget, way behind schedule and with performance requirements being redefined downward. I would not be surprised if when all is said and done one f-35 cost’s more then an f-22 and an f-22 is a much better fighter.
I think it’s pretty well accepted that McCain got lots of priviledges because of who his father was. And that includes the North Vietnames.
!Callate Juan!
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