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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (51402)	5/14/2014 10:18:39 AM
From: Bilow	1 Recommendation Recommended By gamesmistress Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 86355

Hi Wharf Rat; Re: "If that was the case, they wouldn't turn to the guy who has one to solve their problems. Maybe if we give each of them a chopper, they can conduct their affairs without us. Costs less than 1/2 the defense budget, and we only have to do it once."; You're arguing in favor of the US government spending billions of dollars on a new helicopter type that will be devoted only to the use of the US president. I can only conclude that there is nothing Obama could do that you wouldn't approve. If you bother to read the articles, the helicopter has to be special so it can be used even if there's a nuclear attack on Washington DC, LOL. These people are insane. As if we need to give the President an extra opportunity to pull the trigger that will kill everyone on the planet from the nuclear winter / climate change, LOL. Re: "Here's an idea; why don't we wait to replace them until we have an R president, and the choppers finally crash from old age, killing the first R president in 20 years? The R's won't resist then."; Here you give it away. It's all about politics to you. I would be against designing a new helicopter for the US president no matter what political party he was a member of. What, you think that by not designing a special helicopter the President would have to keep flying old ones? What kind of logic is that? No, as I showed above, no other world leader has a single design aircraft. It's unique to the US. You do realize that when he took office, one of the first things Obama did was to cancel the previous stupid helicopter project? In February 2009, President Barack Obama asked Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about placing the project on hold or canceling it because of its high cost: over $13 billion for the planned 28 helicopters. In June 2009, the U.S. Navy terminated the contract after spending about $4.4 billion and taking delivery of nine VH-71s. The helicopters were then sold to Canada for $164 million for use as spare parts for its fleet of AgustaWestland CH-149 Cormorant search-and-rescue helicopters. en.wikipedia.org Here's Obama talking about these helicopters that you're telling me are so inadequate: By the way, I've already talked to [Defense Secretary Robert] Gates about a thorough review of the helicopter situation. The helicopter I have now seems perfectly adequate to me. Of course, I've never had a helicopter before. You know? Maybe -- maybe I've been deprived and I didn't know it. But I think it is an example of the procurement process gone amuck and we're going to have to fix it. Our hope is that you, Senator Levin and others can take leadership on this and one of the promising things is, I think Secretary Gates shares our concern and recognizes that simply adding more and more does not necessarily mean better or safer and more secure. huffingtonpost.com Whatever, we now have a new Helicopter design that's 50% more expensive than the cost over-runs on the previous one, and won't be available until roughly 2022. And industry got the contract without competitive bidding: Sikorsky and Lockheed to Build New Presidential Helicopter Christopher Drew, NY Times, May 7, 2014 Sikorsky Aircraft and Lockheed Martin won a $1.24 billion contract on Wednesday to begin building a new presidential helicopter. The companies were the only bidders in the latest phase of a decadelong effort to begin replacing the aging, white-topped helicopters that alight from the White House lawn. nytimes.com Do you think this government is going to give you efficient energy generation? No, all they will do is go bankrupt. And the first thing that people do when the economy goes bad is quit caring about the environment. They put political parties into power who promise they can fix the economy. It's not a pretty thing. -- Carl