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On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson is joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss Barack Obama’s recent decision to halt construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, the job loss that creates, and the Air Force decision to award a new plane contract to a Brazilian company.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:
Lawmakers seek to undo pipeline denial
Republicans Look for Alternatives After Keystone XL Rejected
The Fight is On: Super Tucano Selected by USAF But Beechcraft Launches Legal Challenge

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Last week, Air Force General William Shelton, Commander of Air Force Space Command, told Congressional leaders in a closed-door session that the White House tried to pressure him to change his testimony to favor a company that turns out to be a major donor to the Democratic Party.

LightSquared, a Virginia-based broadband satellite company, has been vying for permission to operate in a frequency band in the vicinity of our nation’s GPS system. In Gen Shelton’s presentation to Congress, he went prepared to warn of the dangers the LightSqaured project would pose to our GPS integrity. He said the White House attempted to pressure him into altering the substance of his testimony to indicate:

1. That the military would continue to test the proposed bandwidth for ways LightSquared could still use the spectrum space without interfering with GPS.
2. That he hoped the necessary testing for LightSquared would be completed within 90 days.

The general refused to make these changes.

Full disclosure. I know General Shelton and worked with him between 2005-07 when I was a member of the space community. I have not had any contact with him about this story, but I can comment on the type of officer he is. Willie Shelton is a stand-up guy who epitomizes the Air Force Core Values of Integrity (as evidenced by his willingness to do the right thing), Service Before Self (putting his career on the line by bucking the political hacks), and Excellence (he knows the GPS system must be protected to ensure our nation’s security, and that outweighs any profit a private company may make).

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Let’s face it – there are few things more annoying than Science.  We conservatives need to take a firm stand against Science in all its forms.  In fact, Science sucks.

But let’s not confuse “Science” with “science.”  The regular, boring, old lower-case “science” has to do with applying the scientific method to observed phenomena in order to expand our knowledge of the universe.  It requires a rigorous analysis of empirical evidence and the testing of hypotheses without preconceived, concrete, politicized notions of what the truth must be.  In contrast, “Science” is a ration of pseudo-plausible horseshit asserted by liberals who try to occupy the intellectual high ground and then shut you up by basically saying you are too dumb to express an opinion.

Liberal “Science” is a bludgeon that superficially looks like what we understand to be science, but bears no more than a casual relationship to it.  It is a way of trying to end the debate before it begins – or, more precisely, before you begin.  That leaves the liberals’ nonsense as the first and last word on the subject.  And then they win.

It’s a nice trick – if you let them get away with it.  So don’t.

Call them Scientistians – liberal doofs who try to wrap themselves in the white lab coat of objective reason for only as long as it supports their particular pinko policy prescription du jour.

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The pre-weekend Air Force raid at the Citadel Gun and Safe shop in Las Vegas, NV has been drawing extensive media and blogosphere scrutiny. The operation was led by Special Agents of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI), assisted by law enforcement officials from various federal, state, and local agencies. Many of the concerns I’ve read about deal with the issue of the Posse Comitatus Act. But there is much more to the story that needs to be told.

Let me say up front that I am as far right as they come, so my perspective on this is tempered by my hardcore conservative beliefs. If I sniffed even a whiff of a Constitutional issue, I’d be the first to throw a flag on the field and call the military out for a violation. But nothing untoward occurred in Las Vegas.

I am also a retired career OSI Special Agent, having served over 25 years in that capacity. When I retired in 2007, as a Colonel, I was one of the organization’s senior-most agents and Region Commanders. I’ve been involved in many investigations and operations where the Air Force OSI has executed warrants or subpoenas in the civilian community, especially at the offices of defense contractors. It happens quite often, so I can speak with authority about the Las Vegas raid.

The Air Force OSI is one of a handful of Military Criminal Investigative Organizations (MCIOs) that can receive and execute federal subpoena authority from the Department of Defense Inspector General (DoD/IG). The other MCIOs are the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), the Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID) and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS).

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Patrick “Kit” Bobko was willing to jump out of airplanes to earn his airborne wings as an Air Force Academy cadet, so the dying dinosaur that is the Los Angeles Times is not going to intimidate him.  Nor is the fact that California’s 36^th Congressional District has a marked Democratic registration advantage.  On Tuesday May 17^th, Kit will be facing a cast of over 15 competitors in an early test of California’s wacky new open primary law.  Refreshingly young, smart, and conservative, Kit Bobko might just foreshadow the new resurrection of California’s DOA Republican Party.

Congressional Candidate Kit Bobko

The 36^th District covers the southern coast of Los Angeles County, anchored on the south by the hills of Rancho Palos Verdes where amazing rich people enjoy spectacular views of the Pacific from Malibu to Catalina Island.  It then heads north, ending in the bohemian nightmare that is Venice.  In between are Torrance and the beach cities of Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and Hermosa Beach, where Kit has twice been elected to the city council and has battled all manner of liberal nitwittery.  These are generally prosperous towns, getting wealthier the closer one goes toward the unrivaled beaches.  These people are natural Republicans but don’t seem to know it – educated, affluent, and entrepreneurial, they are the enemies of a liberal machine that still somehow get their votes.   Last year they famously reelected a liberal state senator over her GOP rival despite her clear disqualification from office – she tragically died during the campaign.

Up to the 90s, the voters would check the box for GOP candidates in state and federal elections, but for the last several terms they sent Democrat Jane Harman to Washington.  Harman easily won reelection in 2010, but Congress being no fun when the Democrats weren’t in a majority anymore, she quit earlier this year.  Harman didn’t need the aggravation – she was likely the richest member of Congress thanks to her recently deceased husband Sidney, who founded the Harmon-Kardon audio empire and recently bought Newsweek for $1, which was much more than it was worth.  Harman called herself a “blue dog” Democrat, which meant she pretended to be a fiscal conservative and hid the usual contempt for American security that her comrades typically display when she was home, and then went back east and voted so left that it would make a Bolshevik blush.

Kit may just have an edge because he does not have the capacity to be two-faced, a likely result of the training he received as an Air Force Academy graduate.

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Despite the media firestorm over her military travel abuses, Nancy Pelosi continued to use the United States Air Force as her own personal travel agency right up until her final days as House Speaker according to documents we uncovered from the Air Force.

According to these new documents, which we obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Pelosi used Air Force aircraft for 43 flights from January 1 to October 1, 2010. By comparison, Nancy Pelosi logged 47 flights in the previous nine-month period, April 1, 2009, to January 1, 2010, according to previous documents we uncovered.

So, in other words, she did not back off at all from her pattern of abuse.

Here’s a quick summary of what these documents include: a mission activity chart detailing all of former Speaker Pelosi’s flights January 1 to October 1, 2010, as well as detailed shopping lists for some flights, flight authorization forms, mission expense records and internal Air Force correspondence related to the flights.

And here are two quick highlights:

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Talk about arrogance. Even in the face of a Judicial Watch investigation spotlighting Nancy Pelosi’s abuse of military air craft, the House Speaker shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, Speaker Pelosi may have set a frequent flyer record for taxpayer-financed luxury jet travel.

We recently obtained new documents from the United States Air Force detailing Speaker Pelosi’s use of United States Air Force aircraft between March 2009 and June 2010. And they pretty much tell the same, outrageous story as previous documents we’ve uncovered and released.

Here are the highlights from the newest batch of documents, which we obtained pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed on January 25, 2009:

•Pelosi used the Air Force aircraft for a total of 85 trips, covering 206,264 miles, from March 2, 2009 through June 7, 2010. Pelosi, her guests and Air Force personnel logged a total of 428.6 hours on these flights.
•Members of Pelosi’s family were guests on at least two flights. On June 20, 2009, Speaker Pelosi’s daughter, son-in-law and two grandsons joined a flight from Andrews Air Force Base to San Francisco International Air Port. That flight included $143 in on-flight expenses for food and other items. On July 2, 2010, Pelosi took her grandson on a flight from Andrews Air Force Base to Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, which is northeast of San Francisco.

According to previous documents uncovered by Judicial Watch, the Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. Seriously, review these documents for yourself and you can see that Nancy Pelosi repeatedly turned indispensible Air Force aircraft into congressional party planes.

For example, purchases for one Pelosi-led congressional delegation traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008, included: Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewar’s scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.

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It’s highly unusual for The Wall Street Journal to be gulled into ignoring the most important part of an issue in favor of chasing a rabbit down a random trail. But it has apparently fallen prey to what is at stake in the Air Force’s acquisition of a tanker aircraft to replace the Eisenhower-era KC-135s, which have flown far past their useful life.   The Journal, like too many others, apparently believes it’s a question of protectionism versus open competition.

A Thursday Wall Street Journal editorial rightly bashes Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wa) for his attempt to bully US defense contractors out of partnering with EADS, the European Aerospace and Defense Systems company which is still trying to sell its Airbus 330 to the US Air Force as a replacement for the KC-135s.

There is no more urgently-needed new aircraft for all our armed services.  As then Air Force Chief of Staff John Jumper told me in a 2005 interview, “We are a global air and space power because of these tankers.  He added, “The first thing that happened in any contingency is that you put the ‘tanker bridge’ up there. We deploy tankers to places such as Spain, Hawaii, Guam and their sole purpose is to get large numbers halfway across the world without stopping.”

In short, no tankers, no superpower.  And the aged KC-135s are no longer capable of meeting the mission requirements imposed by Iraq, Afghanistan and our other international defense needs.

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