Nebraska's Deb Fischer joins six Democrats in letter raising questions about SpaceCom site

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Omaha World Herald

By Steve Liewer

Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer has joined six Democratic senators in signing a letter to the Pentagon’s top watchdog raising questions about the Air Force’s January decision to locate U.S. Space Command’s permanent headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama.

In February, the Defense Department’s Inspector General agreed to investigate the Trump administration’s selection of Redstone Arsenal as the “preferred choice” for the permanent headquarters over Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base, Colorado’s Peterson Air Force Base and three other sites in New Mexico, Texas and Florida.

Outgoing Air Force Secretary Barbara Barrett announced the decision Jan. 13, a week before President Donald Trump left office. Colorado officials from both parties have alleged Trump chose Redstone over Peterson, which is in Colorado Springs, as a political payoff to Alabama supporters.

The letter asked Acting Defense Department Inspector General Sean O’Donnell to look at several aspects of the site selection process, including how and why a previous selection process was called off in 2019 and whether the Defense Department consistently, objectively and fairly represented each site’s qualities in the Redstone decision.


Read more: https://omaha.com/news/local/nebraskas-deb-fischer-joins-six-democrats-in-letter-raising-questions-about-spacecom-site/article_ce4dfcc8-9230-11eb-b089-673d95c42fde.html

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. Scrap the whole silly ass

department.

[peppertree]

2. Hear, hear.

This has F 35-style boondoggle written all over it - which is precisely why Repugs want it.

[Roy Rolling]

3. The Moon is Available

Put the headquarters on the Moon. There’s as much space around the moon as there is around the Earth.

But they really want is a Star Trek Enterpriseatrolling the Earth from 100 miles up. That’s hardly a space force, that’s a just-a-little-bit-higher Air Force.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. It's space cadet for Space Cadets

space cadet in American English

1. a person who appears to be in his or her own world or out of touch with reality.

[Lonestarblue]

5. Biden needs to issue an Executive Order that says that anything Trump or anyone in hin

administration approved after November 3, 2020, is nullified and no additional action may be taken. There is a boatload of bad stuff Trump left behind.

[rlegro]

6. Regardless of which of those sites might end up getting chosen...

None of them are in northern, mostly blueish states. Just as the vast majority of U.S. military bases are plunked down in former Confederate states plus western states and the Great Plains. This goes way back to southern senators who often controlled defense spending.

Plus presidents like LBJ who were fond of plunking down important federal facilities in their home states or nearby.

We have had a series of base-decommissioning commissions whose recommendations usually get ignored. Little of such siting decisions seems to be based on pragmatic, legitimate issues (like, you might not want to launch military satellites from bases in the snow belt -- I could respect that). Rather, it's all about padding federal defense spending in states historically dependent upon that money, which means a further transfer of federal dollars from states with few or no military facilities.

Also, southern state bases are where military personnel are most apt to be inculcated into militant right-wing philosophies just because of proximity to so many civilians who have those ideas. Think Timoithy McVeigh.

We need to reduce the size of our military infrastructure but when we do, let's not keep the smaller footprint inside the existing, skewed footprint.

[DENVERPOPS]

7. I am guessing that the ones allowing it to go to Louisianna

won't be happy if it is changed to a better state and will demand their monstrous Bribes back from Trump/Ivana/Jared......