Oh I see.

We don't want to put the taxpayers in hock to build or maintain sorely needed roads and bridges but keeping a small army of people employed in building more of the, as yet, usused in battle $350 million each F-22s is fine and dandy.

We have what, 141 of them already? Bush, Rummy, Gates, Obama and many in the Pentagon I gather, didn't/don't want it any longer but horse's heine Saxby Chamblis is pushing for more.

Woo-hoo. That would be the same Chamblis who slurred his senatorial opponent, veteran Max Cleland (D), by putting him on TV ads next to OBL based on some policy difference he'd had with Bush. Chamblis, of course, cheered the war Cleland fought in, Vietnam, from secure bunkers at a Frat House, while Cleland lost 3 limbs in a war he later denounced.

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Don't you ever get tired of this democrat=good, republican=bad nonsense?

It's not an issue of "us" taxpayers paying the debt that our recent administrations (democrat AND republican in case you haven't noticed) have already spent - you and I will be dead for decades before the debt we already have incurred is payed back. The issue, for me, is that we are saddling our children and their economic futures with massive piles of debt that they will have to pay.

This WILL lower their standard of living and their prospects for a good life because WE don't have the gonads to fix OUR PROBLEMS by OURSELVES.

But since you just go on and on and on with this political party nonsense I'll humor you.... do a quick look up on Chris Dodd and his position on the F22.

For politicians it always comes down to pork, it doesn't matter at all what flavor.

__________________
98 Dodge-Cummins pickup (137K)
13 GLK250 (157k)
06 E320CDI (341K)
16 C300 (89K)
82 300GD Gelaendewagen (54K)

I like the F22, we should really have about 250 but they keep cutting that down. Actualy AFAIK the F22 is out of production for now.

Dodd is a POS and about as liberal as you can get, but he supports the F22. Because defense spending is good for CT.

I hope the military orders lots of them, lots of GE engines, Colt weapons, subs, and helicopters! That means lots of good jobs for CT.

__________________
1999 SL500
1969 280SE
2023 Ram 1500
2007 Tiara 3200

CMAC 2012,

YES!

He's also the same Crooked/Bribed S**thead who came out for a TEXAS sugar processor who "Blew Up" /"Burned" his constituents here in a
Sugar Processing Plant Explosion.

Typical Political Whore !

"Dixie Crystals Plant Explodes"

February 8, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

PORT WENTWORTH, Ga. — Firefighters have pulled four bodies from the rubble of a still-burning sugar refinery that exploded Thursday night and are searching for at least four others workers who remain missing, according to Georgia’s top fire official. More than 50 other workers were injured, more than 15 critically, in the blast.

“We continue to look for survivors. We pray that there will be survivors,” Georgia’s Fire Commissioner John Oxendine said."


This next quote from a "Slightly" left of Center publication,details the Carnage:

"Imperial Sugar Explosion: Capitalists Profit, Workers Die

Eleven Workers Killed Near Savannah, Georgia

FEBRUARY 25—“The building shook, and the lights went out. I thought the roof was falling in,” a forklift operator told the Savannah Morning News. On February 7, an explosion at the Dixie Crystals sugar refinery just outside Savannah, Georgia, ignited the plant and set it ablaze. Eleven workers have died so far. Dozens have been injured; 13 remain hospitalized. “I saw people come running out burnt, screaming, hollering, their skin hanging off them,” one witness told the New York Times (9 February). Captain Matt Stanley from the Savannah Fire Department called it a “dormant volcano full of lava” (CNN.com, 12 February). A machine operator working on the third floor of the plant described how “there was fire all over the building.” “We climbed out of there from the third floor to the first floor,” she said. “Half the floor was gone. The second floor was debris, the first floor was debris” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 7 February). For a week firefighters battled the fire while rescue workers looked for burnt bodies.

This atrocity was no “accident” or “tragedy,” as John Sheptor, the CEO of Imperial Sugar, the plant’s parent company, claimed. The sugar refinery plant at Port Wentworth was a firetrap waiting to explode. The plant was first built in 1917 and one of the antiquated processing buildings that exploded was constructed of wood soaked in creosote—called “fat lighter” because it is so flammable. Even though the plant sits right by the Savannah River, firefighters quickly encountered water pressure problems as they combatted the blaze. Government investigators have found evidence that combustible sugar dust had accumulated beneath silos next to the processing plant in a basement area where conveyor belts are used to move processed sugar. In early January, the plant was rocked by a smaller explosion in the dust removal equipment.

“We are concerned about the families,” intoned CEO Sheptor. In fact, a relative of an injured worker told Workers Vanguard that the workers’ impoverished family members are relying on community donations to afford the three-hour trip to Augusta, Georgia, to see their relatives at the burn ward. As she told WV, that money should be coming from the company. Instead, several longshoremen who work near the sugar plant told WV that the company is now using scare tactics against the workers—claiming that if they sue, the company will go bankrupt and the plant will not be rebuilt. Dixie Crystals refinery accounts for some 9 percent of the total refined sugar capacity in the U.S. The Imperial Sugar Company, headquartered near Houston, Texas, is one of the largest sugar companies in the U.S., with gross profits of almost $105 million in 2007.

To the capitalist bosses, the lives of workers are expendable in the service of the bottom line. In 2006 alone, more than 5,700 workers died at work and millions more were injured nationwide. The sugar refining industry is prone to dust explosions that are preventable. Last November, an explosion rocked the Domino Sugar refinery in Baltimore, Maryland, injuring two workers. According to the United States Chemical Safety Board (CSB), between 1980 and 2005 there were 281 dust explosions, killing 119 workers and injuring 718 more.

In the clash between protecting workers’ lives and boosting capitalist profits, the main weapon workers have to defend themselves is the union. The Dixie Crystals refinery was a non-union plant, although other Imperial Sugar refineries are unionized. Every factory and worksite should have union safety committees with the power to shut down unsafe locations. With the overwhelming majority of U.S. workers unorganized, what is desperately needed is a class-struggle fight to organize the unorganized. Especially in the notoriously anti-union, “right to work” South, this means that the labor movement must fight against the racial oppression of black people that has long been used by the capitalists to divide and weaken labor. The name Dixie Crystals—with a plant workforce that is majority black—highlights this legacy of racist oppression.

Workers from the powerful International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), which organizes workers at other sugar refineries, had unloaded raw sugar at the refinery’s dock. The ILA should have been playing a leading role in fighting to unionize that plant, but the Savannah labor movement has never made a concerted effort to organize these refinery workers. Instead, the pro-capitalist labor tops push reliance on capitalist politicians and government agencies, renouncing the very class-struggle methods that built the union movement in this country. The response of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT)—who between them organize sugar plants throughout the country—to the disaster in Port Wentworth is indicative. Rather than seeing it as a clarion call to fight to organize the unorganized, the UFCW and IBT filed a petition to the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to strengthen its regulations.

Government agencies such as OSHA and the CSB do not exist to protect workers. Their pretenses to safety serve to mask capitalism’s disregard for workers’ lives and safety. The labor bureaucrats are literally putting the lives and safety of workers in the hands of the bourgeois government, which exists to protect the rule and profits of the capitalist bosses. As part of a muckraking series on workers’ deaths, New York Times writer David Barstow pointed out in a 22 December 2003 article, “When Congress established OSHA in 1970, it made it a misdemeanor to cause the death of a worker by willfully violating safety laws. The maximum sentence, six months in jail, is half the maximum for harassing a wild burro on federal lands.” Between 1982 and 2002, OSHA refused to seek prosecution in 93 percent of the 1,242 cases where OSHA itself concluded workers had died from willful safety violations. OSHA had not inspected the Dixie Crystals refinery since 2000, and Dan Fuqua, an OSHA spokesman in Atlanta, told WV that the agency dismissed a complaint several years ago without even bothering to visit the plant.

In an article on the Savannah explosion, Socialist Worker (15 February), newspaper of the reformist International Socialist Organization, points out, “Since taking office, the Bush administration has chipped away at OSHA, limiting the institution of new regulations and rolling back existing ones.” Echoing the labor bureaucrats, the article concludes, “It is little wonder the agency stresses a ‘voluntary compliance strategy,’ which relies on industry associations and companies to police themselves.” What Socialist Worker willfully disappears is that the Democratic Clinton White House set the tone by its “New OSHA” initiative that stressed “partnership” with business and “voluntary compliance.”

__________________
'84 300SD sold
124.128

I heard the other day that there are 22 different manfacturing sites making parts for the F-22. The forward fuselage is made in Marietta GA. The mid fuselage in Ft. Worth and the aft fuselage in Seattle. And that;s just the body.!!!
Manufacturing info:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-22-manu.htm

McCain wanted it killed. Sec. Gates wanted it killed. C'mon Carl. Chambliss is from GA. no? Just lookin out for the home folks.

dynalow,

chambliss consistently works hard on the side of his political contributors...
WHO are not his Georgia Constituents!



Imperial coached Chambliss on how to rebut whistle-blower witness at U.S. Senate hearing
Larry Peterson | Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 12:30 am


Graham H. Graham, a former vice president of Imperial Sugar Co. (Photo: Savannah Morning News)



Related Stories

*
SavannahNow
U.S. case against Imperial drags on
*
SavannahNow
Senator's claim that he was coached 'in no way' in doubt



Related Topics

* Politics - US Senate, Republican, Saxby Chambliss, US Politics, US News, Johnny Isakson
* Business - Food
* Places - Savannah, GA

Contextual linking provided by Topix

Imperial Sugar Co. prepped U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss to rebut testimony by a whistle-blower witness at a Senate hearing last year, a lobbyist's memo indicates.

In addition to Chambliss being given hundreds of pages of documents, the senator, Imperial's CEO and its lobbyist discussed the July 29 hearing in advance of the session itself, a Chambliss spokeswoman confirms.

On or about July 24, Chambliss, Imperial lobbyist George Baker and company President and CEO John Sheptor talked about the hearing, Chambliss spokeswoman Bronwyn Lance Chester said.

Much of the hearing focused on the Feb. 7, 2008, explosions and fire that killed 14 people at the company's Port Wentworth refinery.

During the hearing, former Imperial executive Graham Graham testified that Imperial Sugar hindered his efforts to make the plants safer, a claim the company denies.

As Graham testified, Chambliss repeatedly interrupted him and twice questioned his sincerity.

Go to savannahnow.com/news/explosion to read eyewitness testimony, see images taken days after the explosion and more.

Lawyers for victims of the tragedy say the documents and the pre-hearing conversation show Chambliss and Imperial conspired to discredit Graham, a key witness in lawsuits against the company.

"It's ... shameful that the senator and the company attacked one of the few people trying to help the workers," said Savannah attorney Jeremy McKenzie, who represents some of the victims.

In response to a request for comment on the hearing, company spokesman Steve Behm spoke of Imperial's effort to rebuild the plant.

Behm said the rebuilding process includes "communicating with all of our audiences ... our employees, the communities in which we operate, regulators and other stakeholders. We have done so openly, honestly and lawfully."

Chambliss has received more than $131,000 in campaign cash from sugar interests, according to the nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based Center for Responsive Politics.

That includes $1,000 from Imperial's political committee. In addition, Chambliss has received money from Imperial's lobbyists.

Sheptor has said the company didn't try to influence the senator. But it has acknowledged providing material to the hearing subcommittee and to Chambliss.

The Georgia Republican is not a member of the panel but was invited to participate by Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson, the subcommittee's ranking Republican.

Chambliss did not respond to a request for an interview. Questions were answered by spokeswoman Lance Chester.

Lobbyist campaign cash

About five weeks before the hearing, Baker made a $1,000 campaign donation to Chambliss, who was re-elected last year after being forced into a runoff.

In April 2008, Chambliss received $1,000 from the political committee of the Williams & Jensen lobbying firm that Baker works for. In March 2008, he received $1,000 from Patrick Pelley, one of the firm's principals.

__________________
'84 300SD sold
124.128

The f35 is way cheaper, Which one is able to be cofigured to vertically take off and hover like the Harrier?

The F22 and the F35 are designed for different roles.
The F22 is the next generation stealth fighter. Right now we have the superior plane, but Russia and China are working on a plane that will leapfrog our current inventory.

I am all for building both the F22 and the F35.

I know that there is no moving people off the DEM=GOOD REP=BAD soapbox.

__________________
"I have no convictions ... I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy"

Current
Monika '74 450 SL
BrownHilda '79 280SL
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Gone
'74 Jeep CJ5
'97 Jeep ZJ Laredo
Rudolf ‘86 300SDL
Bruno '81 300SD
Fritzi '84 BMW
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Saxby's sugar rush
Thursday, July 16, 2009 at 12:30 am
Contextual linking provided by Topix

Federal lawmaker appears to do refinery's bidding.

U.S. SEN. Saxby Chambliss splits the tiniest of hairs when he now says Imperial Sugar Co. didn't coach him on how to rebut a whisle-blower witness who testified about hazardous conditions that existed prior to last year's explosion and fire that killed 14 people at the company's Port Wentworth refinery.

Maybe Imperial's Washington lobbyist didn't put words in the Georgia senator's mouth.

However, four days before the hearing on Capital Hill, the firm's hired gun provided Mr. Chambliss with a script along with other documents that painted Imperial President and CEO John Sheptor in a glowing light and whistleblower Graham H. Graham as a liar.

Maybe that's how things normally work inside the D.C. beltway.

But back in Georgia, citizens expect their elected representatives to be independent-minded and objective. That's especially true when people here have been killed, families are grieving and federal safety inspectors said Imperial's management may face criminal charges for safety violations at the refinery.

Unfortunately, instead of accepting Imperial's documents as information - which is what Georgia's other senator, Johnny Isakson, did - Mr. Chambliss was apparently emboldened by them.

His actions during the July 29, 2008, Senate subcommittee hearing on workplace fires and explosions spoke for themselves. He badgered Mr. Graham, a former vice president of operations for Imperial whom Mr. Sheptor hired in November 2007, less than three months before the fatal blast. He twice told Mr. Graham that he questioned his sincerity.

Those aren't the moves of an aggressive, yet dispassionate fact-finder. They're more suited to an attack dog.

Mr. Chambliss stated in a letter published on this page Wednesday that the questions he asked were his own. He said that in his opinion, Mr. Graham was the Imperial exec who was responsible for the well-being of the refinery's employees.

But Mr. Graham wasn't the boss. Instead, he was a short-timer. Findings by federal investigators indicate that hazardous conditions pre-dated Mr. Graham's employment.

Imperial's upper management in Sugar Land, Texas, apparently would like Mr. Graham to take the fall for the Feb. 7, 2008, catastrophe. Indeed, that's the only conclusion that fits, given the documentation that Imperial lobbyist George Baker slipped Mr. Chambliss on July 25, 2008.

They included Mr. Graham's sworn testimony to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration about the blast as well as Mr. Sheptor's. "We underscore that the picture painted by Mr. Graham does not represent reality at the Port Wentworth plant," Mr. Baker wrote in a memo to Mr. Chambliss.

None of those documents were sent to Mr. Isakson, who sits on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety. Instead, the company singled out Mr. Chambliss, who was invited to the hearing as a courtesy.

It's too bad Mr. Chambliss didn't simply say thanks and move on. Instead, by jumping on Mr. Graham, he appeared to do Imperial's bidding. The fact that the senator accepted $3,000 from Imperial's lobbyists in the months leading up to the hearing doesn't strengthen his argument that he acted independently.

Meanwhile, Imperial's credibility at the corporate level has plunged to a new low.

Steve Behm, Imperial's official mouthpiece since the explosion, told this newspaper last July that the company didn't supply questions to Mr. Chambliss for Mr. Graham. But Imperial lobbyist Baker, who works for the Williams & Jensen lobbying firm, did exactly that on July 25, 2008.

Maybe Saxby Chambliss had a sugar high when he tangled with Mr. Graham. But that's becoming ancient history.

The real story and focus must be on Imperial's failures that killed 14 people. Given the Baker memo, which differs from Mr. Behm's version of the facts, something is rotten in Sugar Land.

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'84 300SD sold
124.128

Any Demo who supports it cause of jobs to his state should be replaced. These guys who have been bought and stay bought need to be shown the door, and instead of us just complaining about it, we should make it happen.

As for R vs. D, the Rrs are making first rate clowns of themselves. Some historians make a good case that the Great Depression had it's roots in WW1 and that Jimmy Carter's economy woes had their roots in the massive $$$ spent for no return in Vietnam.

But does it cross Rr minds that maybe the WOT and OIF especially is the real cause of our economic doldrums, that combined with a broad array of poor consumer choices? No, it's OBAMA what screwed up the economy. The full court press on any and all things Obama is ludicrous. The hard right love the feud and their ideology more than they love the country.

Most all the Rrs and the Blue Cross democrats have been bought by Big Isurance/Big Pharma.

So much for the WWW. I've searched for a party line breakdown on who voted for it but I can't find it. McCain made good sense. Gates made good sense. We already have a Rolls Royce defense compared to everyone else's clapped out Rambler.

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Don't misunderstand me and think i'm defending the guy. I know little about him and have no burning desire to learn. I leave that to GA voters.
I think the thread title and the comments in the post don't square. It's a criticism of Chambliss more than anything.

"Woo-hoo. That would be the same Chamblis who slurred his senatorial opponent, veteran Max Cleland (D), by putting him on TV ads next to OBL based on some policy difference he'd had with Bush. Chamblis, of course, cheered the war Cleland fought in, Vietnam, from secure bunkers at a Frat House, while Cleland lost 3 limbs in a war he later denounced."

I dont' have a dog in this fight. If they don't need more than 130 fighters, kill the program. Give them all green jobs. Pickin' tomatoes. Or building the next generation fighter, the F-35.

Oh well - Republican BS has got me bent out of shape. Chamblis and about 5 other Rr Senators are not among my most admired people.

Skilled engineers can't come up with something our country can profitably build and sell? The choices are picking tomatoes or building the next $65 billion fighter?

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

This just in: I did find the vote finally at:

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00235

Demos voted 42 aye, 15 nay

Repubs voted 15 aye, 25 nay

One independent voted aye

__________________
Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Agree this Rep = Bad Dem = Good stuff is plain STUPID, to use the words of our president incorrectly.

Simplify it, if they are a politician they are bad, well very high probability. Unfortunately this isn't a case of a few bad apples, it's the reverse.

Consider any good business man, Warren Buffet, Jack Welch ..., will always surround themselves with good people, people that know the subject at hand. And use their advice and input as they primary decision points.

Who knows better about the F-22, the Pentagon or a bunch of Pork smelling politicians????

Think of this, here in Cook county Illinois, the politicians legalized Pot. Well not exactly, they made minor possession a misdemeanor, just a $ 200 ticket.
Personally a reasonably good move, if nothing else it costs a lot to arrest, try, and jail these relatively minor offenses, and very many are thrown out.

BUT, why was it enacted? One of the councilwomen’s sons got busted. Did they even ask the Sheriff of Cook for his input? Never even called him about it.

So what you have is the wrong person making decisions for the wrong reason.

__________________
KLK, MCSE

1990 500SL

I was always taught to respect my elders.
I don't have to respect too many people anymore.

Um, just a couple of short term job ideas off the top of my head for unemployed Ga ( and Cali) workers till things get better, whenever that is.
Come to think of it, are tomatoes a big crop in GA.