via KitUp!
Listen to this bastard laugh when he talks about child rape. A bullet to the back of the head would be too merciful!
Don't be confused by this move.The U.S. Navy is working to place a 'mothership' for Special Operations Forces in the Middle East, Fox News confirms.The USS Ponce, which was most recently being used as a dock in the Mediterranean Sea for the Libyan operation, was scheduled to be decommissioned in December. Navy officials now tell Fox News that the ship will be transformed into a flotilla to be used by Navy SEALs
Until December, the Navy had planned to retire the Ponce and decommission it in March after 41 years of service. Among other missions, it was deployed to the Mediterranean Sea last year in support of NATO’s air war over Libya.Why do I get the feeling that all the work done to make sea basing a reality was for the benefit of SOCOM...and SOCOM alone?
Instead, the ship will be modified into what the military terms an Afloat Forward Staging Base. Kafka, the Fleet Forces command spokesman, said it would be used to support mine-clearance ships, smaller patrol ships and aircraft.
The documents posted by the Military Sealift Command in December, however, specify that the mothership will be rebuilt so that it can also serve as a docking station for several small high-speed boats and helicopters commonly used by Navy SEAL teams.
Here’s a little fact to keep in mind when considering the current cuts to spending at DoD (and let’s be clear, there is nothing wrong with appropriate cuts to defense spending), besides all the other ramifications it promises:Shamelessly copied from their site. If you're not dialed into them you should.
Defense accounts for less than 20 percent of the federal budget but already exceeds 50 percent of deficit-reduction efforts. And for every dollar the President hopes to save in domestic programs, he plans on saving $128 in defense.And that’s without the looming sequestration cuts (keep in mind, most war fighting costs are not included in the budget) of another half trillion dollars.
Or said another way, the administration has decided that it will attempt to cut spending primarily with cuts to national defense. There is no serious program afoot to cut back the myriad of other government agencies and branches. In fact, many are expanding (see EPA, IRS, etc.).
As for sequestration, Democrats are bound and determined to see it through, because, you know, national defense is less important than winning an ideological struggle.
Charles Hoskinson of POLITICO’s Morning Defense reports (btw, if you don’t subscribe to it, you should):
BUT REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS are still far apart on one key issue: taxes. We caught up with SASC Chairman Levin at a breakfast Thursday and he said he's counting on public pressure to push the GOP to accept new tax revenues as part of any solution - something they've so far refused to consider. Meanwhile, Levin and other Democrats won't budge on reversing sequestration except as part of a complete package. "The dam has got to be broken on revenues, and what I believe will break it is the threat of sequestration," he said.Shorter Levin, “we’re more than willing to hold national security hostage and see it gutted to get our way on taxes”.
It is rather interesting approach for an administration which is hung up on everyone paying their ‘fair share’. It seems that the lion’s share of what it will surely tout during the upcoming campaign as serious budget cutting, will come from the one Constitutionally mandated duty it has – national defense.
As for all the programs that have a future funding liability of 200 trillion dollar?
Meh.
~McQ