Just Another Hog
By now you will have read about this somewhere, here’s the Washington Post version: Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama holding up Obama nominees for home-state pork.
What you probably don’t know, is that the largest chunk of money that Shelby is attempting to extort by his tactics, is to build a facility in Alabama that is designed for the manufacture of Northrop/EADS KC-45, an aircraft that the Defense Department has not yet decided to purchase.
Wikipedia has a decent short version of the sordid KC-X affair, which is the search to replace the venerable [a nice way of saying archaic] KC-135 fleet of aerial refueling aircraft. It involves an initial order of 180 aircraft, so it is a very large chunk of money at stake.
I’ll give you a hint at how bad this process has been – the Hedgemony canceled a defense contract and actually prosecuted people for corruption. Members of Boeing’s top management had to resign. It has been bid three times, and the decision on the third bid isn’t due until this summer.
Shelby is trying to force the Air Force to accept a bid from an individual company, essentially acting as a lobbyist for that company/consortium, and holding up 70 appointments to accomplish this. He is holding up the work of the government for the possibility of 1000 jobs in Alabama.
4 comments
Ah, home sweet home.
.-= last blog ..Snow Pictures! =-.
I wonder what brain trust thought it would be a good idea to put an aircraft plant around Mobile, with its history of taking hits from hurricanes. Aircraft plants are not ideally designed for high windloads, and the storm surge flooding can get nasty in Mobile Bay.
I think President Obama should place a blanket over Shelby. No, not a blanket hold, just a good, airtight blanket…
.-= last blog ..‘My Older Brother Plays On The Football Team…’ =-.
I would really like to see someone with subpoena power looking at his finances. He didn’t come up with this, or anything else, like breathing, on his own.