Obama looks to cut 12 Army combat units

Thousands of poorly equipped and supported soldiers died on Bataan Death March. 

Hell, let's just surrender now!

• Both parties spend endless money to line the pockets of Wall Street Bankers, illegal aliens and crooked defense contractors, but the trooper on the front line gets the shaft.

The Pentagon’s fiscal 2015 defense budget proposal will cost the Army another six combat units, shrinking the active force to 28 brigade combat teams (BTC) by 2019.

Prior to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s Feb. 24 announcement, the Army was already on track to shrink to 490,000 soldiers. The force reduction will eliminate about a dozen Brigade Combat Teams, bringing the active force down to 32 BCTs by early 2016.

This latest round of budget cuts will force the Army to cut another four active BCTs as well as two combat aviation brigades, according to an Army official with knowledge of the plan reports Military.com.

The end strength announcement was part of the larger budget roll out that Congress still needs to sign off on before President Obama can approve it.

In addition to combat brigades, the Army would also have to cut up to 20,000 soldiers from combat support units, an Army source who asked to remain anonymous told Military.com.

The Army currently numbers just over 520,000 soldiers. Cutting the active force to a size of 440,000 to 450,000 would shrink the Army to the smallest it has been since before World War II.

Despite its reduced size, more than 10 years of war have made the Army effective at organizing potent force packages to respond to a wide range of battlefield challenges, the Army official said.

And with the war in Afghanistan drawing to a close, the Army is returning to a contingency-response mind-set.

Always question the sanity of generals and politicians,
but always back the trooper on the front lines.

Obama takes away military benefits and weapons

Liars, Whores and Thieves

• The scumbag hacks in Washington fall all over themselves to line the pockets of illegal aliens, Wall Street bankers and military contractors with money.  But having the back of the common soldier is usually low on the list.

Benefits for active­ duty personnel and their families would be slashed under a budget proposal released Monday by Comrade Obama's Pentagon.
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A moronic Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel acknowledged the cuts would be controversial but argued they were unavoidable (bullshit) in a belt-tightening era following the end of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
.

“We know the Defense Department must make difficult budget decisions, but these cuts would hit service members, making it harder for them and their families to make ends meet,” said Paul Rieckhoff, the founder and CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).
.

• Coupled with a 1 percent ceiling on pay hikes and assuming a 5 percent annual increase in housing costs, the Military Officers Association of America estimated an Army sergeant with a family of four would see an annual loss of $1,400. An Army captain would lose $2,100, it said.
• General and flag officers would see a pay freeze. 
• Increased prices at military commissaries.
• Cut the growth of housing allowances for service members and their families and stop reimbursing renter’s insurance entirely.
• An increase in healthcare fees for military family members. 

The Obama budget would eliminate the Air Force’s A-10 “Warthog” attack jets, which provide ground troops with close air support.
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Over the next five years, the Pentagon plans to reduce the size of the active duty Army from 520,000 members to between 440,000 and 450,000. The Army National Guard would also be reduced from 355,000 to about 335,000, and the Army Reserve would be cut from 205,000 to 195,000. The Marine Corps would also shrink, from about 190,000 to 182,000.

Read more: The Hill.

 

 

First to get screwed by the politicians.
The liars and whores in Washington are always ready to screw over the volunteers who stand watch to protect our liberty.  Let us remember the words of Colonel Jessup below.
_________________


"Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg?
.
I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.
.
You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline.
.
I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to."
Colonel Jessep

GOP Food stamp fraud bill passes NM House of Representatives

Rep. Monica Youngblood
Republican - Albuquerque
Elect Monica Youngblood 

SANTA FE  – A bill that toughens penalties for those who try to trade food stamps and EBT cards for cash passed 65-0 in the New Mexico House of Representatives on Saturday and the bill’s sponsor thinks the chances are good that the measure can get through the Legislature before the 30-day legislative session ends Thursday.

“You have instances where people were continually committing fraud and we couldn’t really aggregate those into a felony,” said bill sponsor Rep. Monica Youngblood, R-Albuquerque of House Bill 229. “That’s what this bill will do.”

Across the country, there have been reports of people going on Craigslist and offering to sell food stamps, Women, Infants and Children (WIC) checks or electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards for cash reports the New Mexico Watchdog.

Here in New Mexico, a gas station attendant in Albuquerque was caught on tape by KOB-TV trading $200 in food stamps for $100 in cash.

Last May, a couple from Farmington was arrested and charged with entering false transactions for food purchases using food stamps and then giving half the money they were reimbursed to the holder of the food stamps.

“It’s really easy to sell (food stamps and EBT cards),” Youngblood said. “People stand outside grocery stores and actually offer them for half their value. I hear from teachers that kids are coming to school hungry and that shouldn’t be the case in our state, especially with the amount of public assistance we have.”

HB229 would add gradations of severity, so that convictions for cashing in on more than $500 in assistance programs would amount to a fourth-degree felony; more than $2,500 would equal a third-degree felony and more than $20,000 would be a second-degree felony.

Youngblood’s bill sailed through two committees and the House floor without a dissenting vote. It now heads to the Senate.

“I’m hoping to get it fast-tracked through the Senate,” Youngblood said.

Taxpayers subsidize 'sex dens and lap-dancing clubs'

"Conservatism" You Can Believe In

Government subsidies the average voter can relate to.

Those aged between 18 and 24 are offered work as bar staff, receptionists and cleaners as part of Conservative Party Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith’s work program.

Taxpayers are helping subsidize sex dens that lure jobless teenagers into ­working for them, the Sunday People can reveal.


Subsidize Lap Dancing Businesses
Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith
Conservative Party

Lap-dancing clubs and massage parlours can get grants worth up to £2,275 for every youngster they hire through JobCentres reports the UK Mirror.,

Those aged between 18 and 24 are offered work as bar staff, receptionists and cleaners as part of Welfare Secretary Iain Duncan Smith’s work program.

Labour is demanding proper research by ­ministers to see if girls there end up as sex workers.

MP Fiona Mactaggart says she has met teenagers who started as cloakroom ­attendants and went on to do sex acts for money.

She said: “Parents don’t want their daughters ­working in these ­environments. Taxpayers should not subsidize teens into this kind of work.”

The DWP said: “To be eligible for our schemes, jobs must not exploit ­vulnerable jobseekers.”

JobCentres are banned from advertising “vacancies which involve performing sexual activities”.

SOCIALISM - 28% Unemployment Rate for Greece

In this 2012 photo youth unemployment was "only" 50.4%. 
All the European bailouts only made it worse.

61.4% Greek Youth Unemployment

• Europe is a corrupt blend of big government Socialism and Mussolini Corporatism.  The official policy is to drive governments like Greece deeper and deeper into debt with international bankers, crush their economies and force them, as debt slaves, to obey their Masters in Brussels.   

Greece’s unemployment rate has hit new highs.

Even amid tentative signs of economic recovery in the country, there is no let up in the pace of job shedding.

Economists expect things to get worse in the early part of this year as companies continue to restructure and fire workers reports Euronews.

One Greek jobseeker explained that the only thing available for most people is temporary, government-funded work.

She said: “We certainly don’t see any positive signs, nothing to indicate that there are jobs. Everyone’s looking, but there are just these programmes that last for five months, but then you’re out of work again. You have a break from being on the dole, but it’s just for five, or at most six months depending on the programme.”

The latest figures that have been released are for November 2013.

Overall unemployment inched up to 28 percent. It had been 27 percent a year earlier and 27.7 percent in October.

The youth jobless total reached 61.4 percent in November, up a full two percent from November 2012.

Though life remains extremely difficult for millions, with 14 percent of the Greeks living in extreme poverty according to a survey carried out late last year, Greece’s austerity-fuelled economic slump is starting to ease.

There have been improvements in retail sales, manufacturing activity and construction, but that is a long way from feeding through into substantial job creation.

Symela Touchtidou, the euronews business reporter in Athens, concluded: “The Greek government is preparing to borrow on the international markets for the first time in four years. A successful auction of bonds would mean Greece becoming the latest country to exit the bailout program.

Postal Service Announces Giant Ammo Purchase

What The Fuck?

Now Comrade Obama is arming the Post Office.

The U.S. Postal Service is currently seeking companies that can provide “assorted small arms ammunition” in the near future.

On Jan. 31, the USPS Supplies and Services Purchasing Office posted a notice on the Federal Business Opportunities website asking contractors to register with USPS as potential ammunition suppliers for a variety of cartridges.

“The United States Postal Service intends to solicit proposals for assorted small arms ammunition,” the notice reads, which also mentioned a deadline of Feb. 10 reports Infowars News.

The Post Office published the notice just two days after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) announced his proposal to remove a federal gun ban that prevents lawful concealed carry holders from carrying handguns inside post offices across the country.

Ironically the Postal Service isn’t the first non-law enforcement agency seeking firearms and ammunition.

• Since 2001, the U.S. Dept. of Education has been building a massive arsenal through purchases orchestrated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
• The Education Dept. has spent over $80,000 so far on Glock pistols and over $17,000 on Remington shotguns.
• Back in July, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also purchased 72,000 rounds of .40 Smith & Wesson, following a 2012 purchase for 46,000 rounds of .40 S&W jacketed hollow point by the National Weather Service.
• Including mass purchases by the Dept. of Homeland Security, non-military federal agencies combined have purchased an estimated amount of over two billion rounds of ammunition in the past two years.
• Additionally, the U.S. Army bought almost 600,000 Soviet AK-47 magazines last fall, enough to hold nearly 18,000,000 rounds of 7.62x39mm ammo which is not standard-issue for either the U.S. military or even NATO.  It would take a Lockheed Martin C-5 Galaxy, one of the largest cargo aircraft in the world, two trips to haul that many magazines.
• A month prior, the army purchased nearly 3,000,000 rounds of 7.62x39mm ammo, a huge amount but still only 1/6th of what the magazines purchased can hold in total.
• The Feds have also spent millions on riot control measures in addition to the ammo acquisitions.

While the government gears up for civil unrest and stockpiles ammo without limit, private gun owners on the other hand are finding ammunition shelves empty at gun stores across America, including shortages of once-common cartridges such as .22 Long Rifle.

California Receives $1 Billion To Promote Obamacare

Obamacare promotion topping $1 billion

Your Tax Dollars at Work to Fuck You Over

Covered California has received an additional $155 million in federal grant money, pushing the total amount the state  was awarded to promote the health care law past the $1 billion mark.

According to the group’s website, the money will primarily be used for outreach, marketing, enrollment assistance, staffing and technology. Before this grant, Covered California received $910 million in taxpayer dollars for Obamacare purposes.
 

With the current money pumped into the state, the total amount has reached $1.1 billion in grants.

Covered California is also currently embroiled in an Obamacare scandal, having hired at least 43 felons as navigators who have been convicted of past crimes such as forgery, shoplifting, robbery, and welfare fraud. The group defended their actions of hiring convicted felons.

“These convictions happened 10, 20, 30 years ago. They do not pose a threat or a significant threat to those people who they will be doing business with,” said Covered California spokesperson Dana Howard.

(Capitol City Project)

Democrat states have the highest property taxes

And the winner is . . . .

With the highest property taxes in the U.S. I suspect

the winner is not Chris Christie of New Jersey in 2016.

Here are the 10 states with the highest mean property taxes, according to the Tax Policy Center's study:

State	2012 Mean Property Taxes Paid
New Jersey	$7,318
New Hampshire	$5,230
Connecticut	$5,200
New York	$5,040
Illinois	$4,469
Vermont	$4,328
Rhode Island	$3,820
Massachusetts	$3,805
Wisconsin	$3,530
Alaska	$3,290

Source: Tax Policy Center.

It is interesting to note that except for Alaska all the high property tax states are in New England or in the Northern states.

Democrats are universally known for worshipping at the throne of big government, Karl Marx and the re-distribution of wealth.  But Republicans are not that far behind with many of the worst GOP offenders being located in the Northern states.

Alaska ranks as the only solid Republican state on the list.  New Hampshire would rank as purple having voted for Comrades Kerry and Obama for President and electing a Democrat Governor and mostly Democrats to Congress.


See more at The Motley Fool.com

California Started the Tax Revolution

In 1978 Howard Jarvis spearheaded a California grassroots property tax revolt against the bipartisan big spending establishment of the state.  Proposition 13, which limits property taxes to 1%, was put on the ballot with hundreds of thousands of signatures of average citizens.

Many "Conservative" Republicans in the legislature like future GOP Governor George Deukmejian joined with Democrats to oppose the Jarvis' Proposition 13 property tax cap.  They placed a watered down counter version on the ballot filled with loopholes to keep the tax machine humming.

The voters saw through the bullshit of the big government lovers and passed 13 in a landslide.  The property tax cap stands to this day.

See more at California Proposition 13

Proposition 13 - A 1% Property Tax Cap  California 1978
Choice	Votes	Percentage
Yes	4,280,689	62.6%
No	2,326,167	34.0%
Invalid or blank votes	236,145	3.4%
Total votes	6,843,001	100.00%
Voter turnout	68.9%

Analysis

Praise Be to Howard Jarvis
Howard Jarvis - Hated by big government Democrats and Republicans alike. 
But loved by those who are forced to pay the taxes.

Philippines expands their navy to counter China

An Arms Race in Asia

The Philippines and Japan build up their military as China aggressively moves to claim international waters as their own. 

The Philippines wants to acquire two more navy ships from the United States to boost its maritime protection amid threats from China, the country’s military chief said Wednesday.

The new acquisitions would come under the fresh US military assistance announced by US Secretary of State John Kerry when he visited the Philippines last month, armed forces chief of staff General Emmanuel Bautista said.

“Within the last year, we realized that there is a real threat out there in terms of securing, defending our territory,” Bautista told ANC television reports The Nation.

He said that ideally the country needed about six more frigates to guard its long coastline effectively.  “In fact, we are bidding now for two frigates, hopefully we will be able to acquire them in (a) couple of years,” Bautista said.

He said he has made “maritime domain awareness” and protection a key concern of his leadership.  The funds used to boost maritime defence, he said, would come from the $40 million military assistance pledged by Kerry in December.

Philippine Navy formally receives 3 brand new Augusta Westland's AW109 "Power" bought from Italy

Philippines to Acquire Shore Based Missile Defense

China is claiming nearly all of the South China Sea.

The Philippines has already acquired two refurbished American frigates in the past two years, and they now lead patrols in the South China Sea.

The Philippines, a long-time US military ally, has been locked in an increasingly tense standoff with China involving disputed reefs and islands in an area Manila calls the West Philippine Sea.

In 2012, the flagship BRP Gregorio del Pilar, the first acquired from the US, confronted Chinese ships on Scarborough Shoal, a small outcrop just off the coast of the country’s main island of Luzon.

The Chinese eventually gained control of the outcrop after Manila backed down. However, the government sought UN arbitration to settle the dispute, a move rejected by China.

Manila has also increasingly looked to the US for help, and negotiations are ongoing for an increased rotational presence of American soldiers in the Philippines as part of Washington’s “pivot” to Asia.

Bautista said the Gregorio del Pilar, as well as another frigate that arrived last year, have been deployed to protect the country’s waters.

“There are Chinese fishing vessels in the West Philippine Sea as we speak,” he said, but declined to say where they were in the disputed waters.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, including waters near the coast of its neighbors.

Recently, China has declared an “air defence identification zone” over the East China Sea where it is engaged in a dispute with Japan.

Kerry has warned China against imposing a similar restriction over the South China Sea, and said the US government also rejected the zone over the East China Sea.

Last week China also announced a new fisheries law requiring foreign vessels to seek permits for activities in much of the South China Sea, in another move that triggered angry protests from Manila.

BRP Gregorio del Pilar was deployed in the West Philippine Sea before
Christmas to secure the territory of the Philippines.

China Targets U.S. Aircraft Carriers

An Aircraft Carrier Killer

• China has developed missiles that travel at 10 times the speed of sound and can sink an American carrier.
• While back here in the USA the idiots in Congress and the Pentagon squander billions in tax money on ancient World War II era aircraft carrier technology that would stay afloat for maybe 10 minutes in a real war. 

(Infowars News)  -  China’s new hypersonic missile vehicle is primarily designed to target U.S. aircraft carriers, military expert Chen Hu told the state-run China Central Television (CCTV) in yet another admission of Beijing’s increasingly hostile geopolitical posturing.

The WU-14, a hypersonic glide vehicle which can penetrate missile defense systems by traveling at up to ten times the speed of sound, underwent its first test flight earlier this month.

 

Despite assurances by China’s defense ministry that the new vehicle was not aimed at any particular country, Chinese military expert Chen Hu told state media that the system, “can surely be used against US carriers in any region around the globe” and that it was “designed to strike large military targets including US aircraft carriers.”

 

 

 

"You sunk my battleship."
“The People’s Liberation Army has successfully sunk a US aircraft carrier, according to a satellite photo provided by Google Earth,” reports the Want China Times,” adding that, “A satellite image reveals two large craters on a 200-meter-long white platform in the Gobi desert used to simulate the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

 

Noting that the development of the vehicle was necessary in order to maintain the balance of power in East Asia, Chen said that its purpose is to prevent the United States from using its hypersonic weapons against China, adding that the Cold War-era doctrine of “mutually assured destruction” is guiding policy both in Washington and Beijing.

 

Last year, China reportedly sunk a mock U.S. aircraft carrier utilizing the DF-21D anti-ship missile, dubbed the “carrier killer,” during a wargame which took place in the Gobi Desert.

 

Bellicose rhetoric directed at the United States by China has intensified in recent months in light of heightened tensions over the disputed Senkaku Islands.

 

Last month, Beijing bragged that its first aircraft carrier combat task force, led by the inaugural Liaoning warship, matched anything the United States had to offer.

 

A lengthy editorial which appeared in Chinese state media last month explained how the Chinese military’s current reformation process was part of a move by President Xi Jinping to prepare the People’s Liberation Army for war in response to US aggression in the Asia Pacific, developments which have prompted “major changes” in China’s national security situation.

 

Beijing has also pontificated about China’s ability to attack US military bases in the Western Pacific, as well as releasing a map showing the locations of major U.S. cities and how they would be impacted by a nuclear strike launched from the PLA’s strategic submarine force.

 

See more photos at Tiexue.net

The Aircraft Carrier USS St. Lo
Sunk by Japanese kamikaze aircraft on 25 October 1944 in the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
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A total of 57 ships were sunk by Japanese kamikazes including 3 aircraft carriers and 14 destroyers.  Some 368 other ships were damaged.  About 4,900 sailors were killed and over 4,800 wounded.
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Call me crazy, but if an aircraft carrier can be sunk by a "primitive" propeller driven fighter plane one has to ask how long these ultra-expensive ships will remain afloat in an age of modern missile technology or jet fighters piloted by Muslim suicide bombers.
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Here is a radical thought.  Build air bases on land.

Kamikaze Attacks

USS Gerald Ford - $13 Billion in Scrap Metal
.Congress spends insane amounts of money to fund boondoggle spending projects like the USS Gerald Ford.  The price tag for the USS Gerald Ford is now at $13 billion, it is 22% over budget with three more years to go before it is finished.  The fact of the matter is modern technology can sink it in minutes.
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To compare, the navy of India just took delivery of  INS Vikramaditya aircraft carrier for a cost of $2.35 billion.

Also see our articles - USS Gerald Ford - $13 Billion in Scrap Metal
and
$8.5 trillion spent by Pentagon with no audit

Swiss cut welfare to alien "migrant" workers

A No-Brainer

• Under pressure from the conservative Swiss People’s Party the flow of "free" taxpayer paid for crap to aliens is being cut off.

Switzerland is scrapping benefits for unemployed migrants from the European Union and planning new powers to expel them ahead of a referendum on a migration cap next month.

Residency permits for foreign pensioners who retire to Switzerland and apply for state benefits will also be reviewed. The aim is to relieve the pressure on the welfare budget.

Under new rules announced last week, Britons and other EU citizens, as well as incomers from the European Economic Area states of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, will no longer receive benefits if they lose their jobs and have not contributed to Switzerland’s insurance fund for the jobless reports The Sunday Times.

Foreigners will lose their residency permit after five years if they have been out of work for the previous 12 months.

.

The tighter rules come ahead of the referendum on capping migration, called by the right-wing Swiss People’s party and scheduled for February 9. The party has described its proposal as an “initiative against mass immigration”.
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The government and business leaders oppose the cap (naturally), which they claim could leave Switzerland without a vital inflow of qualified migrants (translation - cheap labor). In recent years, German doctors have been flocking to Switzerland, attracted by generous salaries, high living standards and excellent working conditions.

Switzerland is not in the EU, but has an open-border agreement with the union’s 28 member states. Under present rules, EU migrants are allowed to search for work in Switzerland for 12 months. If they have worked in another country for at least a year before their arrival, they are entitled to unemployment benefits immediately.

There are 1.8 million foreigners in Switzerland, about 23% of the population.

Critics refer to the referendum as an “initiative for isolation”, and suggest the government announced the new rules in an attempt to appease voters before the poll.

Johann Schneider-Ammann, the economics minister, denied there was any such ploy, but admitted Switzerland’s housing crisis was “partially” down to an influx of foreigners.

In a 2009 referendum, also backed by the Swiss People’s party, more than 57% of voters supported a constitutional ban on the construction of minarets on mosques. It subsequently emerged that there are only four mosques with minarets in the country.

The Conservative Swiss People's Party is forcing changes in
unlimited immigration and welfare to "alien" workers.

Sucking on the Government Teat
Switzerland is cutting off that sweet, sweet flow of tax
money to non-citizen "migrant" aliens.

$175 Million for Penis Pumps - Thank You Taxpayers

Socialist Erections

A Marxist re-distribution of the wealth in

order to buy penis pumps.

From my experience, manly Capitalists do not need help getting it up.

Taxpayers paid nearly $175 million for vacuum erection systems (VES), commonly known as “penis pumps,” from 2006 to 2011, according to an inspector general report released on Monday.

The federal government paid more than double the retail price for VES, the Department of Health and Human Services IG found. Medicare prices for the systems, the report said, “remain grossly excessive compared with the amounts that non-Medicare payers pay,” reports the Washington Free Beacon.

Medicare paid 473,620 VES claims during calendar years 2006 through 2011, according to the IG report.

Health care policy experts said the revelations in the IG report are a troubling indication of what they describe as wasteful spending in federal health programs.

“The fact that taxpayers have spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars over the past decade on penis pumps via Medicare is obscene and insulting – even moreso when you consider that this is an arena of Medicare expenditures rife with fraud and where the government doesn’t even bother to assess medical necessity,” said Ben Domenech, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute.

Get Your Penis Pumps Today
Karl Marxs Shops are here to serve every wealth redistribution wet dream of the unwashed Proletariat masses.  Come in today and see our fully stocked shelves of Obamaphones, penis pumps and free EBT card ready to eat pizzas.  Never worry about getting a bill from Marxs Shop.  Some other guy somewhere will pick up the tab for you.

.
Bipartisan Marxism
This particular penis pump wealth redistribution bullshit began in the "small government" GOP controlled House and Senate of 2005 - 2007.  It continued on with a Democrat controlled Congress and continues to this day with a Democrat Senate and GOP House. 

F-35 Fighter made with Communist Chinese parts

The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in Action
(AP File Photo)

"Ah! the Generals! They are numerous,

but not good for much!"

Aristophanes

(446 BC – ca. 386 BC)

Idiot Alert  -  Every morning I get up, look in the mirror and wonder if I am the only sane person left in this fucking country.  Now we have the morons in the Pentagon and the Obama regime ordering parts for our fighter jets from Communist China.

The Pentagon repeatedly waived laws banning Communist Chinese-built components on U.S. weapons in order to keep the $392 billion Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter program on track in 2012 and 2013, even as U.S. officials were voicing concern about China's espionage and military buildup.

According to Pentagon documents reviewed by Reuters, chief U.S. arms buyer Frank Kendall allowed two F-35 suppliers, Northrop Grumman Corp and Honeywell International Inc, to use Chinese magnets for the new warplane's radar system, landing gears and other hardware.

Without the waivers, both companies could have faced sanctions for violating federal law and the F-35 program could have faced further delays reports Reuters News.

"It was a pretty big deal and an unusual situation because there's a prohibition on doing defense work in China, even if it's inadvertent," said Frank Kenlon, who recently retired as a senior Pentagon procurement official and now teaches at American University. "I'd never seen this happen before."

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, is examining three such cases involving the F-35, the U.S. military's next generation fighter, the documents show.

The waivers were needed to keep production, testing and training of the Pentagon's newest warplane on track; avert millions of dollars in retrofit costs; and prevent delays in the Marine Corps' plan to start using the jets in combat from mid-2015, according to the documents. In one case, it would cost $10.8 million and take about 25,000 man-hours to remove the Chinese-made magnets and replace them with American ones, the documents indicate.

Lockheed is developing the F-35, the Pentagon's costliest arms program, for the United States and eight countries that helped fund its development: Britain, Canada, Australia, Italy, Norway, Turkey, Denmark and the Netherlands. Israel and Japan have also placed orders for the jet.

The program is already years behind schedule and 70 percent over initial cost estimates. At the time Kendall was granting the waivers, officials were acutely worried that further delays and cost increases would erode the foreign orders needed to drive down the future cost of each warplane.

Happy Communist Workers
Enthusiastic workers making parts for an American fighter jet.  I mean really, what could possibly go wrong? 
.
Thank God the Pentagon is staffed with the "Best and the Brightest" people our military academies could produce.  Just imagine if our military was run by idiots?

The F-35.  Made with Communist Chinese parts.

New Obamacare taxes coming in 2014

"From each according to their ability"

The real question is, are there enough tax-payers left who care?

Obama’s massive health-care law will hit Americans in 2014 as new taxes pile up on their insurance premiums and on their income-tax bills.

Most insurers aren’t advertising the ObamaCare taxes that are added on to premiums, opting instead to discretely pass them on to customers while quietly lobbying lawmakers for a break.

But one insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, laid bare the taxes on its bills with a separate line item for “Affordable Care Act Fees and Taxes,” reports the New York Post.

After Obamacare taxes this is all
you can afford to eat.

The new taxes on one customer’s bill added up to $23.14 a month, or $277.68 annually, according to Kaiser Health News. It boosted the monthly premium from $322.26 to $345.40 for that individual.

The new taxes and fees include a 2 percent levy on every health plan, which is expected to net about $8 billion for the government in 2014 and increase to $14.3 billion in 2018.

There’s also a $2 fee per policy that goes into a new medical-research trust fund called the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Insurers pay a 3.5 percent user fee to sell medical plans on the HealthCare.gov Web site.

ObamaCare taxes don’t stop with health-plan premiums.

Americans also will pay hidden taxes, such as the 2.3 percent medical-device tax that will inflate the cost of items such as pacemakers, stents and prosthetic limbs.

Those with high out-of-pocket medical expenses also will get smaller income-tax deductions.

Americans are currently allowed to deduct expenses that exceed 7.5 percent of their annual income. The threshold jumps to 10 percent under ObamaCare, costing taxpayers about $15 billion over 10 years.

Then there’s the new Medicare tax.

Under ObamaCare, individual tax filers earning more than $200,000 and families earning more than $250,000 will pay an added 0.9 percent Medicare surtax on top of the existing 1.45 percent Medicare payroll tax. They’ll also pay an extra 3.8 percent Medicare tax on unearned income, such as investment dividends, rental income and capital gains.