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Senate passes $631B defense policy bill 98-0

Using solar to power a home frees up oil which can then be made in to gasoline to power a car. Once again, Logic 101.

I don't know where you live but my home and all the homes I've ever lived in never used a drop of oil for anything. Further there is not one power plant that uses oil, all the power plants are fired by coal or natural gas. I take it you did not know that. Now try again.
 
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One word: Solyndra

If alternative energy is such a winner and not just another money pit that will lose more money than it makes, the private sector should invest private money in the technology and get the ball rolling. How much of your money have you invested in it?

the private sector is better suited to make an alternative energy source more efficient once is is profitable, not to innovate it when it isn't. the difference is that energy is a national security priority, and should be treated as such. funding energy R&D is entirely appropriate, and I'd argue that it's critically important. individual companies will come and go, but that doesn't mean that oil and coal are our best long term options, and it certainly doesn't mean that alternative energy won't be viable. live another century. you'll see.
 
Any increase in defense spending is reprehensible if not disastrous. I do blame the GOP more for this, since it and the rightwing noise machine have spent years poisoning the well of our political discourse on national security and attacking anybody who is against more spending as unpatriotic.

Romney did that in the last election.

So I condemn any democrat who voted for this, but I blame the GOP more for its paranoid rhetoric on national security.

This post just may prove, even to you, that you simply, and constantly, babble moronic, partisan stuff. Read the OP, and note that the Senate vote was 98-0 and that demorats are the majority party. Do you think that the demorats lack the balls, or the brains, to play it your way?
 
What I recall hearing on NPR was that the defense Department was concerned about not having funding for biofuels because they supposedly have seen the utility of those in the long-run and want to be able to make the conversion.

Which they are already doing with the Navy. Also it is costing more to convert systems over.
 
Which they are already doing with the Navy. Also it is costing more to convert systems over.

Is there anything in the DoD that doesn't cost more than planned?
 
Don't forget Both Panetta and Dempsey Warned Obama and the Democrats about Cutting Defense. They said it would be a threat to the Country, evidenced.....

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned senators Tuesday that they can’t expect to fix the nation’s financial problems on the back of the Pentagon.

Panetta, a former budget chief and House member, said Congress should focus on new taxes and entitlement reform to lower the budget deficit, and said additional defense cuts will endanger the nation’s security.

“You can’t meet the challenge that you’re facing in this country by continuing to go back at discretionary spending,” Panetta told senators at Tuesday’s Senate Budget Committee hearing.

“That’s less than a third of federal spending,” he said. “If you’re not dealing with the two-thirds that is entitlement spending, if you’re not dealing with revenues, and you keep going back to the same place, frankly you’re not going to make it, and you’re going to hurt this country’s security,” Panetta said.

While Panetta has offered similar warnings in the past, his lecture on Tuesday was delivered in unusually blunt language to Congress. And while Panetta’s appearance in the Senate Budget Committee was rare for a Defense secretary, it was not an unfamiliar setting for the former budget chief who served under President Clinton.

Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey have said repeatedly that the military cannot withstand an additional $500 billion in cuts to defense spending on top of the $487 billion that is currently being reduced over the next decade. The additional cuts are set to take effect in January 2013 through sequestration, which was triggered by the supercommittee’s failure to reach a deal to cut annual deficits.

Panetta has called the sequestration cuts taking a “meat-ax” to the military budget, and said Tuesday it was “designed as a gun to the head.”

Dempsey said “we would not any longer be a global power” if sequestration takes effect......snip~

Panetta to Congress: Don

Told them in the Senate budget hearing in Feb of this year. Then Clinton told Obama the Same thing. That's all it took, so you know they were going to Ride lock Stock and barrel with it. Notice even Panetta told them until they hit Entitlements. Aint happening. Any Reason Obama can't Figure that part out yet?
 
That's an interesting point. Most if not all in Congress make $250K or more a year, I would bet they have exempted themselves.

I'm thinking the logical solution is for the people to start stealing from the government to suppliment their income. Maybe jack a few military vehicles to cut up fro scrap. Just imagine how much chain link fence surrounds a military base. Then there are (or all there?) those FEMA camps people keep sending me emails about...

I was talking about thier popularity rating./
 
Using solar to power a home frees up oil which can then be made in to gasoline to power a car. Once again, Logic 101.

We used to use bunker oil (used to be used in ships as well) to generate electricity, about 20% IIRC, back in the Carter days, but he started a movement to reduce that. Now probably around 1% of our electricity comes from burning oil...
So making more electricity using wind and solar really does very little toward saving oil....
 
Um.... when you are using wind and solar, you are not using oil. -Logic 101

Windmills turn, and they have bearings. If you do not grease or oil the bearings, your wind power won't last very long even if the wind does blow. Besides, you'll have to fight the Fish & Wildlife Service to put those windmills up: migratory birds make use of the wind patterns, and they sometimes bump into windmills. Same sort of problem with solar: it disturbs the lizards and snakes, which are much more important to the environmentalists than mere people.
 
Which they are already doing with the Navy. Also it is costing more to convert systems over.

The progressive liberals want us to use wind power for our naval vessels. Oh, wait... :shock:
 
The progressive liberals want us to use wind power for our naval vessels. Oh, wait... :shock:

Alternative fuels......Changing out the systems is causing the higher amounts while trying to still maintain operations. Well.....they don't want to use Rockets to get to Outer Space anymore. Just sayin!
rolleyes.png
 
Alternative fuels......Changing out the systems is causing the higher amounts while trying to still maintain operations. Well.....they don't want to use Rockets to get to Outer Space anymore. Just sayin!
rolleyes.png

Agreed. Some of the posters here seem to have managed to get to outer space with their theories... :mrgreen:
 
Isnt this proof that congress has no interest in cutting spending? Even the democrats, who always list defense as the first thing to be cut, voted unanimously to INCREASE defense spending at the very same moment a discussion is going on about the huge deficit and debt.

Hopefully this gets shot down.
 
a key priority, which will require spending cuts and tax increases. as for wind and solar, I understand and disagree with the "only oil forever" / "get a horse" position.

Well let me tell you, wind and solar is no substitute for oil, I am all for green but green that will get us to a new horizon. Wind and solar is not it. We need a real substitute for oil, not some fake crap that makes people feel all warm and fuzzy. All our electrical plants are fueled by coal or natural gas and we have a thousand years of supply. No oil is used to fire our electrical plants. Further we have all the electricity we need, there has never been a shortage. So having wind and solar make more electricity and being funded by tax dollars is insane. If we want to put money into green then put it in research to come up with a real substitute for oil.
 
Well let me tell you, wind and solar is no substitute for oil, I am all for green but green that will get us to a new horizon. Wind and solar is not it. We need a real substitute for oil, not some fake crap that makes people feel all warm and fuzzy. All our electrical plants are fueled by coal or natural gas and we have a thousand years of supply. No oil is used to fire our electrical plants. Further we have all the electricity we need, there has never been a shortage. So having wind and solar make more electricity and being funded by tax dollars is insane. If we want to put money into green then put it in research to come up with a real substitute for oil.
There are so many things wrong with your post it hurts.

All our electrical plants are certainly not coal and natural gas. Do you think we build those hydroelectric dams for show? We have power of operational nuclear reactors and in isolated cold weather ares diesel generators are the norm. Not to mention that solar and wind really are being used in real people's houses.

Also millions of homes on the east coast use heating oil or gas for heat, and quite a few are using kerosene as well. So oil is being used in plenty of areas electricity could replace.

And there has never been an electrical shortage? What are you 12? Do you not remember the brownouts and blackouts in California and the northeast less than 10 years ago during the summer heatwave? There are areas were electricity must be conserved during the summer or all the air conditioning units will use up more power than is available and cause power failures.

And if you are so concerned about tax dollars, they go to oil too. There is almost nothing around that doesnt get a government subsidy one way or another.

Solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, wind and nuclear power are being used as alternatives to fossil fuels all over the world you can whine about it. It these technologies prove themselves everyday and I don't see you developing alternatives.
 
Well let me tell you, wind and solar is no substitute for oil, I am all for green but green that will get us to a new horizon. Wind and solar is not it. We need a real substitute for oil, not some fake crap that makes people feel all warm and fuzzy. All our electrical plants are fueled by coal or natural gas and we have a thousand years of supply.

i seriously doubt it. the population grows, needs increase, and developing countries form new middle classes which purchase first world comforts and transportation. even if we did have that much, the environmental consequences of putting that much carbon into the atmosphere would have serious consequences. we need to develop another strategy.

No oil is used to fire our electrical plants. Further we have all the electricity we need, there has never been a shortage. So having wind and solar make more electricity and being funded by tax dollars is insane. If we want to put money into green then put it in research to come up with a real substitute for oil.

there has never been a shortage? i'm not sure how you can argue that. our electrical grid is having difficulty keeping up with current demands (brown outs); it's easy to imagine that increased population / demand will stress it even further.

put simply, energy is a national security priority, and it needs to be addressed as such.
 
"88.5 Billion" for the war in Afghanistan.

Maybe one of you rabid Obama lovers can explain that?

Bring those guys home and put them on the U.S./Mexican border.
 
put simply, energy is a national security priority, and it needs to be addressed as such.

It has already has been addressed now, we have a thousand yrs of coal and natural gas to fire our power plants. Solar and wind does not save one drop of oil. Period
 
The progressive liberals want us to use wind power for our naval vessels. Oh, wait... :shock:

It worked for well for centuries until we fell hopelessly in love with fossil fuels. Fossil fuels, however, were but a fleeting affair. We know, one day, they will walk out and leave us high and dry. Maybe its time to go back to our sure and steady love, if it will have us back.

USS Constitution.jpg

No only that, the ole' lady is a thing of timeless beauty.

....and we left her for this fat porpoise?

USS_Shenandoah.jpg
 
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Despite a bit of partisan back-biting, this is as close to everyone agreeing as I've ever seen on DP. I bet there is some fascinating pork and tax exemptions in there and one thing both sides are united on is screwing the rest of us.
 
It worked for well for centuries until we fell hopelessly in love with fossil fuels. Fossil fuels, however, will only leave us high and dry. Maybe its time to go back to our sure and steady love, if it will have us back.

View attachment 67139005

Yeah, and it took 3 months to cross the Atlantic. Can't wait to get back to those days.
 
Despite a bit of partisan back-biting, this is as close to everyone agreeing as I've ever seen on DP. I bet there is some fascinating pork and tax exemptions in there and one thing both sides are united on is screwing the rest of us.

Tax exemptions? No, but there is a shiney new online sales tax buried in it. Now we know why the Dems jumped all over it; they never saw a tax they didn't like.

Online sales tax to be added to defense authorization bill | The Daily Caller
 
Isnt this proof that congress has no interest in cutting spending? Even the democrats, who always list defense as the first thing to be cut, voted unanimously to INCREASE defense spending at the very same moment a discussion is going on about the huge deficit and debt.

Tell me how much defense spending should they cut?
 
This bill I can't support. It allows for "a ban on same-sex ceremonies on military bases and language that says military chaplains can’t be punished for opposing same-sex marriage," continues sanctions against Iran, and allows for Gitmo to continue to be opened. While it changes the indefinite detention regarding the NDAA, it still doesn't change the fact that the President can still assassinate American citizens.

What law says the President can assassinate American citizens?
 
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