Bush to Sign $403 Billion Defense Bill (& visit families at Ft.Carson)

[underpants]

Bush to Sign $403 Billion Defense Bill (&visit families at Ft.Carson)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20031124/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) is defending U.S. involvement in Iraq (news - web sites) and consoling relatives of fallen troops at a Colorado Army post grieving the deaths of 27 of its soldiers.

On Monday, Bush visits Fort Carson, home to four of the 16 soldiers killed Nov. 2 when a helicopter was shot down in the dangerous Sunni Triangle near Fallujah, Iraq. Fort Carson has sent 12,000 troops to Iraq, its largest deployment since World War II.
Families at Fort Carson, near Colorado Springs, generally have supported the war effort, but there have been voices of concern.

The president ends the day at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he will observe Thanksgiving with family members.
On Tuesday, he makes a day trip to Las Vegas for a campaign fund-raiser and a speech on Medicare at Spring Valley Hospital, followed by similar appearances in Phoenix.

[underpants]

1. Some of the provisions in the Defense Bill

Among other things, the defense bill before him at the Pentagon:
_Raises salaries for soldiers by an average of 4.15 percent, and extends increases in combat and family separation pay.

_Partially overturns rules preventing disabled veterans from receiving some retirement pay as well as disability compensation.

_Grants Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld increased control over 700,000 civilian employees. Pentagon officials said restrictions on hiring, firing and promoting employees forced them to use military personnel for jobs better suited for civilians. Democrats said the bill goes too far in stripping overtime guarantees and job protection rules.

_Lifts a decade-old ban on research into low-yield nuclear weapons and authorizes $15 million for continued research into a powerful nuclear weapon capable of destroying deep underground bunkers.

_Exempts the military to provisions of the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. The Pentagon claimed environmental laws restrict training exercises; environmentalists said the laws have had little effect on training and that the exemptions go too far.

[Deaner1971]

3. Great Rummy further politicizes DoD and Bushy gets nukes

I can't believe that Rummy is going to have the careers of the civilian employees under his thumb. This reminds me of how they wanted the Dept. of Homeland Defense employees not included under the protections granted to other Federal employees. Might this be so that anyone who doesn't tow the party line can be canned on a whim? I think so.

And Bush getting his hands on small nukes. I don't know if anything short of North Korean nukes scares me quite as much. Given his environmental record, I can only imagine how he views the imapct of small yield nuclear explosions. Probably would talk about how they offset global warming via "small nuclear winters". Idiot.

I notice that his new Defense budget does nothing to help fund the PXs and base schools that they are quietly trying to shutdown. I would rather allocate money to keep these needed facilities for our troops open rather than develope a nulcear bunker buster that we will never use.

[peekaloo]

2. kick for Rumsfeld extended powers

x(


Crocodile tears, fund raisers and cannibalism (eating turkey).

[54anickel]

4. Didn't he previously CUT combat and family separation pay = wash?

What happened to the big stink about leasing Boeing 767s? Wasn't the leasing going to cost many times purchasing?
Lifts ban on nuclear weapons research?
This Rummy plan sort of goes hand in hand with the OT changes in the FLSA:

_Grants Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld increased control over 700,000 civilian employees. Pentagon officials said restrictions on hiring, firing and promoting employees forced them to use military personnel for jobs better suited for civilians. Democrats said the bill goes too far in stripping overtime guarantees and job protection rules

[underpants]

6. Yes and check this out --Boeing Fires CFO in Hiring Scandal

Boeing Fires CFO in Hiring Scandal

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&ncid=749&e=1&u=/nm/20031124/bs_nm/arms_boeing_dc

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA - news) on Monday said it dismissed its chief financial officer for unethical conduct in the aerospace company's hiring of a senior Air Force procurement official.

Boeing, the No. 2 U.S. military contractor, said Chief Financial Officer Michael Sears was dismissed for violating company policies by communicating with Darleen Druyun about future employment even though she had not disqualified herself from acting in official government capacity on matters involving Boeing. The company also fired Druyun.

Boeing has been indefinitely suspended from bidding on lucrative military satellite launching contracts. Its controversial plan to lease the Air Force 100 air refueling tankers based on its 767 commercial jet platform has been hung up in Congress over concerns it would waste taxpayer money.

Critics said the plan amounted to a corporate handout after Boeing in late 2001 lost the potential $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter contract.

Defense officials said the investigations focused specifically on Druyun, and whether she improperly shared with Boeing some pricing data from Airbus, which is 80 percent owned by European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (EAD.PA) and 20 percent by Britain's BAE Systems Plc (BA.L).

[SOS]

5. More than $1,460,000,000,000.00 in 24 months!

The "defense" of the US has cost the US taxpayer more than one trillion dollars for FYs 2003-2004.

FY 2003 378B DOD
2004 401B DOD
2003-2004 VA 120B
75 B Iraq supplement
87 B Iraq supplement
400 B interest on past DOD borrowing 03-04
DOE nuclear 40B 03-04

These basics alone on current and past expenditures are
one trillion, 460 billion for two years.
Are we feeling safe yet?

[patdem]

7. WOW Clarke goes on Sunday demanding bush* honor soldiers

and Monday bush* visiting families of fallen soldiers..