Yes, all the talk and print has been taken up by Brown-Shaheen, and the schedule never has both Senate seats of a state up for grabs in the same year (barring special elections, of course, wink).
"Kelly Ayotte thwarting effort to retire old Air Force jet" by Bryan Bender | Globe Staff October 23, 2014
WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel says the Air Force plane nicknamed the Warthog is too old and too costly. So the Pentagon is pushing to retire the fleet of 283 Cold War-era combat jets and shift billions of dollars to more modern weapons.
But the aircraft has survived the budgetary ax so far due primarily to the efforts of an unlikely defender: Senator Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican.
No New Hampshire defense contractors rely on the jet, and the military doesn’t base its fleet in the Granite State. Yet Ayotte has a special tie: Her husband, Joe, flew the plane known formally as the A-10 Thunderbolt II in Iraq, a connection she said has helped in “building a coalition” that includes Senator John McCain, whose home state of Arizona hosts many of the planes.
Ayotte and her supporters argue that an adequate replacement for the jet is not yet available, and their efforts could reverse plans to retire the Warthog fleet by 2019. The campaign to save the plane has annoyed top Pentagon officials and spending watchdogs who see it as a prime example of how Congress is handcuffing the military — requiring it to make cuts in defense spending, but forcing it to keep flying outdated jets.
The Pentagon “has endeavored to make smart, strategically informed reductions,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. “And Congress steps in and says, ‘No, you can’t cut that.’ . . . Congress can’t have it both ways.”
Pentagon officials, including Hagel, have testified that if they can’t retire the A-10, the Air Force will have to make cuts elsewhere, including weapons and military training. The Obama administration maintains that retiring the planes will save an estimated $4.2 billion and has told Congress it “strongly objects” to the efforts to keep the planes, insisting that the military will retain several types of aircraft that can do the same job as the Warthog.
The White House has also indicated that President Obama may veto any defense bill that forces the Air Force to retain the A-10 fleet.
None of this has deterred Ayotte. She is pressing her campaign to save the aircraft on grounds that lives could be lost if the A-10 is retired before there is an adequate replacement.
Over the past year, she has enlisted the support of hundreds of fellow lawmakers in both chambers, organized a chorus of current and former A-10 pilots and veterans, and at times played hardball, including temporarily holding up the nomination of the secretary of the Air Force, Deborah James — a move officials are still fuming over.
“In the beginning I was the lone voice on this,” Ayotte, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in an interview. “My husband obviously flew the A-10, so I am very familiar with the airframe because of that. It obviously made me acutely aware of what the A-10 can do.”
She said the 1970s-vintage aircraft, designed to fly “low and slow” and credited with coming to the aid of countless soldiers pinned down by enemy forces in recent conflicts, is an aircraft that “those who serve on the ground believe in.”
“If there was an equivalent to give that kind of close air support to our troops I wouldn’t be making the same argument,” she added.
The A-10 was developed during the height of the Cold War to destroy Soviet tanks. It found new life after 2001 supporting ground troops, and a squadron of A-10s from the Indiana Air National Guard was recently deployed to Afghanistan.
The Warthog is no longer manufactured; the primary expenses today are hundreds of millions of dollars in annual maintenance and operational costs.
After the Air Force decided a year ago to phase out the plane, Ayotte confronted military officials in hearings and through letters, put a hold on the secretary of the Air Force nomination, and undertook what one of her aides later called a “one-on-one, Ayotte-Air Force battle.”
Meanwhile, supporters took to social media. A Facebook page titled “Save the A-10,” begun in August 2013, has more than 18,000 followers and appeals to the public to contact their senators and US representatives to urge them to vote to restore funding for the program.
The battle over the A-10 has showcased Ayotte’s influence. Elected in 2010, she has becoming an increasingly prominent voice in issues related to military spending.
Ayotte is known in Congress as a disciple of McCain, the former Republican presidential candidate who has long been popular in New Hampshire.
McCain represents the state where one-third of the A-10s are based and which stands to lose much if the planes are mothballed.
McCain, notwithstanding his reputation for supporting Pentagon efforts to phase out weapon systems, remained mostly silent on the A-10 until Ayotte built the momentum for a reversal.
McCain did not respond to a request for comment. His press secretary, Brian Rogers, said his boss “appreciates Senator Ayotte’s efforts on this issue” but also insisted that McCain’s support for retaining the plane is not driven by parochial interests.
“Senator McCain supports keeping the A-10 in the fleet not because so many are trained and stationed in Arizona, but for the good of the country,” Rogers said.
Some analysts have praised Ayotte’s effort.
“I am not a big fan of Kelly Ayotte on a lot of issues but she deserves a huge amount of the credit,” said Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington watchdog group. “She was an important part of making this a motherhood issue: ‘If you are against it you are against the troops. If you are for it, you are for cheap and effective weapons.’ ”
Do I salute now?
I'm not a big fan, either.
The plane’s fate now depends on deliberations between the House and the Senate, which will both have to vote on a final budget that addresses the future of the A-10.
Ayotte said she is confident, noting that she has helped to gain the support of four key congressional committees that oversee the Pentagon.
“It is not over,” she said, “but the momentum is there.”
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Related: Scott Brown Surges Past Jeanne Shaheen
I actually hate to see it (not that it really matters), because Brownie a captive of Wall Street and other intere$ts. Go back to my special election posts on Brown and see how I was against a guy who stood with Bush and for torture.
Related: Healthy Economy in New Hampshire Helps Hassan
What might not be:
"N.H. special education school faces abuse allegations" by James Vaznis | Globe Staff October 23, 2014
Two families filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against a highly regarded residential and day school for special education students in New Hampshire, alleging that several staff members verbally or physically abused their children.
In one instance, a classroom aide at the school run by the Crotched Mountain Foundation, in Greenfield, N.H., is accused of taking a picture of a naked 7-year-old boy on a toilet and posting it temporarily on the Internet while another aide laughed about the picture with colleagues, according to the civil lawsuit filed in the federal courthouse in Concord, N.H.
The boy, who lives in Sunapee, N.H., and has a disorder that limits his ability to communicate and comprehend, was also subjected to other physical abuse, such as pinching of his genitals and other body parts, the suit alleges.
The boy’s parents are joined in the lawsuit by the grandmother of a 12-year-old girl who also has limited communication abilities and who shared the same teacher and classroom aides. The suit alleges the teacher slapped the girl’s buttocks and an aide slapped her face.
The school, according to the lawsuit, failed to promptly inform the families about the alleged incidents, depriving them of the ability to comfort the children or get counseling....
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Yeah, torture is the right word and what has happened to those in authority in AmeriKa these days? Why are they monsters?
Back to the campaign:
Nothing but silence.
The war must be over then, and even I do not want her anymore.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Elizabeth Warren rallies for Jeanne Shaheen in N.H.; But Brown responds in tight Senate race by saying foe does little for small business" by Joshua Miller | Globe Staff October 25, 2014
DURHAM, N.H. — The attacks were familiar. But the state was different.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, sharply criticized her former nemesis, Scott Brown, as she rallied people in this college town Saturday to vote for Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, whom Brown is vying to unseat in this year’s New Hampshire US Senate election.
Warren, with Shaheen at her side, told a crowd of about 100 at the University of New Hampshire said she never expected that after she beat Brown in 2012, he would “pack up his pickup truck and move to his vacation home in New Hampshire” to run against Shaheen....
He should have stayed in Mass. and run against Markey.
At the Durham event, the first of three planned Shaheen-Warren rallies Saturday, the Massachusetts senator had a specific request as well: for supporters to talk to friends, put up yard signs, make phone calls, and work intently to get out the vote for Shaheen.
Ron Paul had yard signs.
She said Brown planned to win with “Koch brother money, with oil money, with Wall Street money,” and told the cheering crowd that New Hampshire is “not for sale!”
Why leave out AIPAC money?
This whole dodge and diversion and these names tossed about about and the fury of the two-headed corporate war party blinding people is $ickening.
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Tracy Schroeder, a school nurse in her 50s, was among the Shaheen supporters at the rally. The Durham resident said she is worried about the election: “It’s too close for comfort.”
She said she does not think Brown “has a good grasp of the issues” and she does not want Republicans to gain control of the US Senate.
Yeah, for some reason people have their identity all captured into Republican-Democrat when it doesn't mean $hit. It's sad.
Recent public opinion polls have found the race to be extremely close. A CNN/ORC survey released Thursday found the incumbent leading Brown 49 percent to 47 percent among likely voters, within the poll’s margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.
Oh, that is within steal able levels for Brownie.
The New Hampshire US Senate race is among those that will determine whether the GOP wins control of the Senate.
Actually, they have a surplus of seats and the whole narrative has been a rebuke of Obama, blah, blah, blah. My main wonder is what configuration of politics have been rigged by our ruling ma$ters to make us think we voted for change?
Saturday’s events were the first public campaign rallies Warren has attended with Shaheen in New Hampshire this year.
Warren is one of numerous high-profile politicos campaigning with both candidates. Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to stump with Shaheen next weekend. And Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, is set to campaign with Brown on Monday.
Warren is seen as a potential 2016 White House contender, so her visit to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state was certain to raise eyebrows. But the senator, who has said repeatedly she is not running, was focused on boosting Shaheen and did not answer a reporter’s shouted question about a bid for higher office as she rushed to a subsequent rally.
She runs away from a lot of questions.
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Brown, for his part, campaigned Saturday afternoon at a beer festival in Portsmouth, N.H., with a high-profile US Senator supporter of his own: Republican Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire....
Brown spent about an hour schmoozing, taking small sips of beer, and posing for cellphone photos....
The self-internalization of their owner's values to the point of choice of terminology is striking.
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Sorry to "necklace" you with that "pretzel" of a story.
