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Obama Trims (Some) Fat with Weapons Bill
Truthdig: Drilling Beneath the Headlines —
... capital and could win on something that people thought we could not.”
Once the Senate voted in July to stop buying F-22s, Mr. Emanuel said in an interview, that success “reverberated down” to help sustain billions of dollars of cuts in Army modernization, missile defense and other programs.
Mr. Emanuel said the strategy emerged when the defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, told Mr. Obama they needed to “shake up sacred cows and be seen as taking on fights.”
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OBAMA SIGNS DEFENSE CUTS PARING MANY WEAPONS SYSTEMS
THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS —
... Victory for Obama Over Military Lobby By CHRISTOPHER DREW With the signing of a military bill, President Obama pared more weapons systems than any president in years. ...
Just words
The Reality-Based Community —
The Defense Authorization bill just signed into law, which ( inter alia ) finally kills the F-22, represents the strongest performance in years by the White House and the Office of the Secretary Defense in their perennial struggle to control military waste against the combined opposition of the services, the contractors, and their Congressional allies. Just think how much better we would have done with more experienced President who believed in action rather than mere words. And since we know that Obama’s interest in bipartisan action reflects mere naivete, John McCain’s ...
TPMDC Morning Roundup
TPM Election Central —
... The New York Times reports that President Obama's signing of the Defense Authorization Act yesterday represented a big victory in his effort to cancel or reduce weapons systems that had been deemed wasteful: "White House officials say Mr. Obama took advantage of a rare political moment to break through one of Washington's most powerful lobbies and trim more weapons systems than any president had in decades." ...
Pork in the Age of Obama
Mudville Gazette —
From the pool reports on the president's midnight trip to Dover: POTUS' final scheduled event was a 6:05 p.m. reception commemorating the enactment of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. When it was over, the in-town pool was asked to stick around. Only late in the night did the reason become clear. Actually, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act is a part of the defense spending bill (not to be confused with Cash for Clunkers and a few billion in pure pork that were part of the ...
An impressive win on defense spending
Political Animal —
... . "And so I think it's important to note today we have proven them wrong." The president was right to tout the accomplishment. This really is something of a breakthrough . [A]s the president signed a $680 billion military policy bill on Wednesday, it was clear that he had succeeded in paring back nearly all of the programs and setting a tone of greater restraint than the Pentagon had seen in many years. [...] White House officials say Mr. Obama took advantage of a rare political moment to break through one of Washington's most powerful lobbies and trim more weapons ...
Military Budget, Economic Growth, Palin's $100,000 Fees
Notes From a Grumpy Old Man —
Dana Milbank Seth Robinson Amy Sullivan "The problem is that progress is more gradual than his lofty campaign speeches led voters to believe, and they are becoming increasingly disenchanted." - Dana Milbank "For years, assholes in America have had no voice, and I want to be that whiny, nasal voice." - probably not Joe Lieberman lawyers, guns, and anti-hate... ...
Military Industrial Swamp
TPMCafe —
From this morning's Washington Post.
Nearly half the members of a powerful House subcommittee in control of Pentagon spending are under scrutiny by ethics investigators in Congress, who have trained their lens on the relationships between seven panel members and an influential lobbying firm founded by a former Capitol Hill aide.
Five of the seven are Democrats. Obama and Pelosi need to clean house. Get this ethics investigation going immediately so that if they are guilty we can get new candidates in place to run in 2010. As Obama said yesterday, the task of reforming the Pentagon has just begun. What ...
