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POPSAny Way these Firms Can be Experts in Everything? What these government contractors are expert at is: 1. Placing job sites in states and districts of Congressional Members who serve on funding committee for Defense, IT, and Homeland Security. 2. Have Political Action Committees that donate money to candidates on same committees. 3. Having paid representatives at every meeting in Congress or government agency that could affect their funding.
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POPSFighting Fraud
To put it into perspective, ACORN received about $53 million of federal funding over the past 15 years. Meanwhile, Blackwater, the private military contractor to which the U.S. government has farmed out security duties, may owe the government as much as $55 million for allegedly failing to fulfill the terms of one of its federal contracts. Yet Blackwater (now known as Xe), a company that has five of its employees facing murder charges in a massacre of Iraqi civilians in 2007, got a $217 million contract from the Obama administration to provide security in Iraq. The former Haliburton subsidiary, KBR, got $80 million in contract bonuses to provide electrical wiring in Iraq -- wiring that has fatally electrocuted 16 soldiers and two contractors. They haven’t been defunded by Congress. According to the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight, the biggest three defense contractors -- Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman -- have been cited 109 times for misconduct since 199
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POPSWhat Went Wrong With Our Economy? We're letting domestic and multinational corporations, with their uncompromising profit motive and strong connection to the military, determine the future course of our country and the world. Terrorism has replaced communism as the major threat to our lifestyle. But corporate defense contractors -- Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics -- take millions of dollars from the federal treasury every DAY to produce Cold-War-era weapons, with their profits guaranteed by the American public. We're the leading seller of arms to the world. We intervene in more countries than ever before, even though studies show that intervention is tied to terrorism. Our elected representatives listen to businessmen and generals rather than to scientists, doctors, humanitarians, teachers, mothers. And we've been conditioned to believe that this is the way it must be. But it doesn't have to be this way.
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POPSObama Administration Policies Could Be Big Problem for Small Businesses
Textron was the single largest recipient of federal small business contracts. Textron is a Fortune 500 firm with 43,000 employees and over $14 billion in annual revenue. Textron brought in $775,773,505 in contracts through their AAI division. Other firms considered small businesses by the Obama Administration included, British Aerospace (BAE), Rolls-Royce, General Electric, Xerox, Office Depot, Staples, Dell Computer, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, 3M Corporation, General Dynamics, Booz Allen Hamilton, Northrop Grumman, L-3 Communications, GTSI, Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. During the campaign, President Obama promised to restore the Small Business Administration's (SBA) budget, restore the SBA Administrator to a cabinet-level position and implement the 5 percent woman-owned small business contracting goal. Not one of these campaign promises has been honored. President Obama has apparently kept his campaign promises to the super rich members of the
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POPSAnd the tail wags the dog Finally a President and administration that has the wisdom, common sense, and determination to confront the great military industrial complex.
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POPSKey F-22 booster Rep. Gingrey owns Boeing stock Georgia Republican Congressman Phil Gingrey will make money if the aircraft the Pentagon doesn't want is built. He's stuck it back in the bill from which it had been removed. Smaller government, Rep Gingrey?
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POPSExperts: Financial crisis threatens US security House panel members also were concerned about how the government is devoting money to handle the crisis. President Barack Obama has proposed a 4 percent increase in defense spending to $534 billion during the next fiscal year. But with a $787 billion stimulus package, and billions being poured into propping up banks and other companies, many defense analysts believe that Pentagon budgets, one of the largest shares of government spending, are likely targets for cuts. That could include big programs like the Army's plans to modernize its forces, led by Boeing Co., and programs by Lockheed Martin Corp. to build new advanced fighter jets. Dov Zakheim, a Defense Department comptroller during the most recent Bush administration, said cuts in defense spending could create the perception of American weakness.
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POPSWe Arm the World e more we help one side, the more that regime’s opponents are driven to seek arms from another supplier, leading to an inevitable spiral of arms buying, provocation and conflict,” Klare says. According to Stohl, “The Bush administration has demonstrated a willingness to provide weapons and military training to weak and failing states and countries that have been repeatedly criticized by the U.S. State Department for human rights violations, lack of democracy and even support of terrorism.”
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POPSSatire. Israel Attacks US
President Bush noted that the American casualties from the Israeli raids were not equal to those killed in terrorist attacks on 9/11. “There is no moral equivalence between those killed in self-defense by Israeli warriors fighting for a democratically elected government and those killed by rogue terrorists who hate the freedoms we enjoy,” Bush suggested. Despite some minor collateral damage to some synagogues, traditional liberal Jewish-American leaders remained steadfast in their unwavering defense of Israel. There was far more criticism and debate of the Israeli attacks on the US in the Knesset and among the Israeli public than there was in the US Congress or the American Jewish community, respectively. Those few critics of the incursion contend that all Americans are protected by American and international law, and the strikes against the US should be construed as war crimes. US law prohibits the use of American-made weapons to be used for offensive purposes. Attor
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POPSU.S. Missile-Warning Satellite Fails Discovered by amateur astronomers! .:p .:confused: It underscored the urgency of getting the new Space Based Infrared Satellite (SBIRS) system being developed by Lockheed Martin Corp into orbit. The SBIRS program was launched in 1996 with an eye to launching the first satellites in 2004 at a cost of $4.2 billion. The program has been restructured several times and its price tag is now seen at well over $11 billion Hitchens said some amateur astronomers, who use optical and radio telescopes to track objects in space, suggested the DSP satellite may have been adrift in geosynchronous orbit, which could pose a danger to other satellites operating in that orbit, she said.
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POPSPlumbing the oceans could bring limitless clean energy Now rising fuel costs have revived interest in this neglected technology. In September, the Department of Energy awarded its first grant for ocean thermal energy in more than a decade, giving Lockheed Martin $600,000 to develop a new generation of cold water pipes.
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POPSOcean energy? Looks like it's possible but when we consumers see it and how much will it cost?
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POPSNo, Lockheed Martin is Not a Small Business Washington Post front page story goes in depth on a persistent problem: the federal government's tendency to count contracts handed to big corporations as small business set asides. Pair this story together with a profile we did earlier this year on tech distributor World Wide Technology. http://www.forbes.com/businessinthebeltway/2008/03/06/dell-cisco-wwt-biz-wash-cz_atg_0306beltway.html A relatively large company now, WWT initially survived on winning set asides from the Small Business Administration.
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POPSDefense contractors on the offense We all know one basic thing " you get nothing for nothing". But it takes an army of lawyers to prove it. If these defense contractors have that much money to give away they're not paying enough in taxes.
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POPSFuture planes, cars may be made of 'buckypaper' So far, buckypaper can be made at only a fraction of its potential strength, in small quantities and at a high price. The Florida State researchers are developing manufacturing techniques that soon may make it competitive with the best composite materials now available. "If this thing goes into production, this very well could be a very, very game-changing or revolutionary technology to the aerospace business," said Les Kramer, chief technologist for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control, which is helping fund the Florida State research.
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