On tap in the House: Guns, terrorism and Trump
As Democrats push for a vote on 'No fly, no buy,' Paul Ryan is in a delicate spot.
By John Bresnahan
With just 10 days to go until Congress’ long summer recess — and less than two weeks before the GOP convention in Cleveland kicks off — the House Republican agenda is all about guns, terrorism and Donald Trump.
The chamber will vote this week on an “anti-terrorism” package that includes a gun-control proposal similar to that offered by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and already rejected by the Senate.
It’s the GOP response to the Democrats’ push for new efforts to reduce gun violence in the wake of the June 12 Orlando shooting, which left 49 people dead and 53 wounded. Republicans see Orlando as a terrorist attack inspired by the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, and they are demanding far more action by the White House to defeat these networks. Yet Democrats see Orlando as a symptom of the National Rifle Association’s hammerlock on Capitol Hill and the GOP, and they’re determined to try to break it by enacting new gun-control laws.
The gulf between the two parties is huge — it will only widen in coming days. The House could end up voting on one or more gun bills that have already failed in the Senate, meaning all the dramatics and rhetoric that will take place this week are little more than a carnival show designed to rile up base voters.
The Cornyn proposal is backed by the NRA and most Senate Republicans. House Democrats adamantly oppose the Republican plan, which they see an empty political ploy. Democrats continue to demand a vote on their own version of the “no fly, no buy” gun measure, as well as enhanced background checks for all gun sales. Republican leaders have firmly rejected those two initiatives.
Democrats staged a raucous “sit-in” on the House floor late last month, demanding votes on their two bills. Some Democrats want to repeat that demonstration, though House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other senior Democrats have not endorsed such a move.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was invited by Democrats to address their caucus, a highly unusual offer that he declined.
Ryan, however, will meet privately on Tuesday night with Democratic Reps. John Lewis of Georgia and John Larson of Connecticut, who led the floor sit-in. Lewis, a civil rights movement hero, is held in great esteem by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. But he may face an impossible task in getting Ryan to agree to allow Democrats any more than a cursory vote on their proposals.
“Democrats asked Speaker Ryan to address the full Democrat caucus,” said Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong. “He looks forward to meeting with Congressmen Lewis and Larson to discuss the important action the House will take to prevent terrorist attacks.”
Ryan faces a delicate balancing act on guns. Gun violence and mass shootings are occurring at an alarming rate across the country and the American public favors some kind of action, according to recent polls. But the NRA and gun-rights supporters are critical factions within the GOP base, and they hold great sway with Ryan’s rank-and-file members. Ryan and other top Republicans know that can’t do anything that would alienate these voters only 125 days out from the November elections.
The Cornyn proposal would require the Justice Department to go to court to prove “probable cause” that a person is involved in terrorism before blocking a gun purchase. Law enforcement agencies would have 72 hours to try to stop the sale. Pelosi has dismissed the Cornyn plan as a “toothless NRA bill that will do nothing to keep our communities safe.”
Democrats countered with a proposal that would bar anyone on the federal no-fly list from buying a gun, but Republicans and the NRA say it goes too far. The Senate rejected that plan as well.
GOP and Democratic leadership aides have been holding talks on how Democrats’ demand for a gun vote can be addressed. Democrats want more than a “motion to recommit,” a parliamentary maneuver, on their proposals. Yet Ryan and other top Republican leaders don’t want to be seen as giving in to the Democratic protest, believing it will fuel more such moves.
The Cornyn proposal is part of a broader anti-terrorism package assembled by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). The GOP legislation directs the Homeland Security Department to create an office to counter “radicalization” of U.S. citizens by ISIL and other terrorist groups by developing a “counter-message” program. The bill requires DHS to provide Congress a “comprehensive” plan to “counter radical Islamist terrorism in the United States” within 90 days of enactment. In addition, lawmakers would be told how DHS and other federal agencies would assist state and local authorities in this effort.
The GOP package also calls for an annual review of terrorist “watch lists” kept by the FBI and other federal agencies.
“In the wake of the Orlando attack, we must step up our efforts to combat the radicalization and recruitment of citizens by ISIS,” McCarthy said in a statement on Friday. The bill, he added, “will provide more tools and resources to combat the spread of dangerous radical Islamist ideology and help our law enforcement agencies prevent future attacks on our soil. It will also provide a process for individuals being investigated as known or suspected terrorists who attempt to buy a gun to be flagged, delayed — and if the burden of proof is satisfied — denied their purchase.”
If the showdown over guns and terrorism isn’t theatrical enough, on Thursday presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump will be in Washington to meet with the House Republican Conference. It’s the first face-to-face session between Trump and rank-and-file Republicans.
Ryan and Trump have repeatedly butted heads over issues like Trump’s call for a ban on Muslim immigration, and his attacks on the ethnic heritage of a federal judge hearing a Trump University lawsuit. Ryan publicly called out Trump over these issues, and the interaction between the two will be watched closely by everyone on the Hill, members and the media alike.
So far Trump has said very little in encounters with House and Senate Republicans, laying on the charm in a bid to win over doubters and critics. GOP leaders privately expect to see much the same this week.
“I think you’re going to see [Trump] in listening mode,” said a top House Republican, who asked to speak anonymously. “I think he’s going to try to hear out members.”
Trump, though, could face some tough questions from rank-and-file lawmakers on what has so far been a disastrous start to the general election campaign for the businessman-turned-politician. While Republicans are unlikely to lose the House, Democrats could make serious inroads into the GOP majority if Trump doesn’t turn around his campaign.
And Republicans will also look for signs of whom Trump might tap to be his vice-presidential pick. Several Republican senators have been mentioned as potential running mates, and, with the selection expected soon, GOP lawmakers may ask to hear the real-estate tycoon’s thinking.
Also on the political front this week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will address the House Democratic Caucus. Sanders has yet to endorse Hillary Clinton for president, and Democrats are eager to hear how he will help unify the party at the upcoming convention in Philadelphia.
July 05, 2016
IC 4628
South of Antares, in the tail of the nebula-rich constellation Scorpius, lies emission nebula IC 4628. Nearby hot, massive stars, millions of years young, radiate the nebula with invisible ultraviolet light, stripping electrons from atoms. The electrons eventually recombine with the atoms to produce the visible nebular glow, dominated by the red emission of hydrogen. At an estimated distance of 6,000 light-years, the region shown is about 250 light-years across, spanning an area equivalent to four full moons on the sky. The nebula is also cataloged as Gum 56 for Australian astronomer Colin Stanley Gum, but seafood-loving astronomers might know this cosmic cloud as the Prawn Nebula.
Goes all-out
Ohio’s bromance: Kasich goes all-out to save Portman
The popular Ohio governor is working overtime to lift his old pal and counter any Trump drag in a critical Senate race.
By John Bresnahan
Sen. Rob Portman faces a grueling and costly reelection battle this fall, with Donald Trump causing him serious headaches from the top of the ticket. But the Ohio Republican is counting on some critical help from an old pal: John Kasich.
The popular two-term governor of the Buckeye State has pledged to do whatever is needed to help Portman defeat Democrat Ted Strickland in the marquee Senate contest. That means fundraising, campaign events, TV ads — basically anything Portman wants.
The Republican incumbent needs whatever lift he can get. The race will easily top $100 million, and Trump — with his unpredictable rhetoric and polar opposite views on trade and other issues — is a major X factor for the establishment-minded Portman.
The Portman-Kasich alliance is about more than just political expediency. The two go back decades in Ohio politics. Portman remained loyal to Kasich during the governor’s failed bid for the GOP presidential nomination, despite heavy pressure to throw his support to Jeb Bush; Kasich gets a chance to repay that allegiance now. As for Kasich, it’s another opportunity to stick a dagger in Strickland, the man he toppled in a bitter campaign six years ago to become governor. The enmity between them is still clearly visible.
It’s also a chance for Kasich to help his friend weather any fallout from the man he tried but failed to beat in the Republican presidential primary.
“I’ve always been all in for Rob,” Kasich told POLITICO this week. “First of all, he’s a friend of mine and he’s a good guy. Second, he’s probably one of the most effective guys in the U.S. Senate. ... He understands how to not only be a conservative, but to get along with other people.”
Kasich added: “I really want to him to be able to stay down there and basically represent me and my family.”
Portman looks like he’ll need all the help he can get in a Senate race that will easily top $100 million.
Ohio, of course, is a top presidential swing state, and Democrats have the upper hand so far. Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump in surveys of the state ranges from 4 to 9 points, according to the most recent polls. While Portman and other vulnerable Senate GOP incumbents like Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire can argue that ticket splitters will save them even if Trump tanks in battleground states, there’s a limit how far that phenomenon can go. A double-digit loss in Ohio by Trump could doom Portman, even if the veteran lawmaker runs the perfect campaign.
As for the Portman-Strickland race, the most recent public polls show it’s a tossup. Aides to the former Democratic governor and congressman dismiss the Kasich endorsement as meaningless in a political environment dominated by presidential politics.
Yet the very tightness of this race could make Kasich the most valuable surrogate for any Republican senator up for reelection this fall. He's the most popular political figure in Ohio, with overall approval rating in the high 50s to low 60s. Among independents, a key bloc of voters for Portman, Kasich’s approval rating tops 70 percent.
Having Kasich go big for Portman does nothing but aid the incumbent, especially in what’s likely to be a razor-close contest.
"It’s incredibly helpful to me to have John’s support," Portman said, adding that he’d spoken to Kasich earlier this week to thank him for sending out another fundraising email. “I talked to his chief of staff last night about more (that) they want to do, in terms of TV ads and that sort of thing. It’s really helpful.”
“He has the ability to tell a story about Ted Strickland that nobody else can,” Portman added. “He’s the perfect messenger.”
That message echoes the case Kasich made to voters when they ousted Strickland. “During his time in office, Ohio lost more than 350,000 jobs, we ranked 48th in job creation, and our rainy day fund was drained to just 89 cents,” Kasich said in his latest fundraising email for Portman. “Our country can’t afford that kind of management.”
Portman was born in Cincinnati, and he represented the eastern part of the city during his House tenure. Kasich’s congressional district covered part of Columbus — Ohio's biggest city — and he has political strength in the I-75 corridor from Dayton to Toledo in western Ohio, home to many of the Buckeye State’s Republican voters.
Portman, 60, and Kasich, 64, served in the House together for eight years during the 1990s, including on the Budget Committee, of which Kasich eventually became chairman. They co-sponsored legislation and remained close even after they left Congress — Portman in 2005 for the George W. Bush administration and Kasich in 2001 for TV, a job with a Wall Street firm, and his eventual run for governor.
Kasich has already done eight fundraising emails for Portman, plus a direct-mail piece soliciting campaign money. Those missives — there are more to come, said Portman campaign sources — have yielded nearly $100,000.
Two of Kasich’s former presidental campaign aides have formed a PAC called Eyes on Ohio to help persuade Republican voters in the March primary to support Portman, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported on Thursday.
Yet perhaps the most important role for Kasich will be campaign appearances. Portman is planning an RV tour of the state in August, with Kasich joining him. More joint events will happen this fall, the sources said.
“Kasich is the most popular politician in Ohio,” said Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio). “He’s got enormous crossover support. He’s got incredibly high numbers among unaffiliated voters. ... He’s going to use his political capital across the finish line. It’s enormously important.”
Strickland and other Democrats doubt Kasich’s surrogacy work will help Portman much, if at all: The governor's popularity isn’t going to rub off on Portman, in their view. They say Trump is likely to hurt Portman more than Kasich will help him. Democrats assert trade is a particularly lethal issue for the incumbent: Trump has railed against international trade deals, while Portman served as U.S. trade representative in the Bush administration. If Trump hammers the trade issue in the Buckeye State, and there's no reason to think he won't, that will give Strickland an opening to hit Portman.
Sources close to Strickland said that they see some potential for ticket-splitting in this race as well, but for Trump-Strickland, based on the trade issue.
The Strickland campaign is also pounding Portman over the fact he is supporting Trump and planning to attend the GOP convention in Cleveland. Kasich has refused to endorse Trump over his Muslim immigration ban and other issues, and the governor has no plans to attend the convention. Strickland’s campaign is attacking Portman daily over his support of Trump, and the criticism is sure to intensify as the convention nears.
“While Gov Kasich is refusing to back Donald Trump and may not even appear at the GOP convention in Cleveland, Sen. Portman is continuing to endorse Trump’s toxic and divisive campaign — which is just more proof that Portman is the ultimate Washington insider who is totally out of touch with the people of Ohio,” said David Bergstein, Stickland’s spokesman. “Whenever Portman even mentions Gov. Kasich’s name, we look forward to asking him why he is refusing to follow the governor’s example and retract his endorsement of Trump.”
Strickland will get plenty of help from presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton — she’s already made multiple trips to Ohio since she effectively clinched the Democratic nomination — and from other party luminaries. Vice President Joe Biden is doing two events with Stickland on Thursday, with more likely in the fall.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a possible vice-presidential pick for Clinton, downplayed the value of Kasich’s support for Portman.
“I don’t think you transfer much popularity that way,” Brown said. “I think the more interesting question is what Kasich is doing with Trump.”
The popular Ohio governor is working overtime to lift his old pal and counter any Trump drag in a critical Senate race.
By John Bresnahan
Sen. Rob Portman faces a grueling and costly reelection battle this fall, with Donald Trump causing him serious headaches from the top of the ticket. But the Ohio Republican is counting on some critical help from an old pal: John Kasich.
The popular two-term governor of the Buckeye State has pledged to do whatever is needed to help Portman defeat Democrat Ted Strickland in the marquee Senate contest. That means fundraising, campaign events, TV ads — basically anything Portman wants.
The Republican incumbent needs whatever lift he can get. The race will easily top $100 million, and Trump — with his unpredictable rhetoric and polar opposite views on trade and other issues — is a major X factor for the establishment-minded Portman.
The Portman-Kasich alliance is about more than just political expediency. The two go back decades in Ohio politics. Portman remained loyal to Kasich during the governor’s failed bid for the GOP presidential nomination, despite heavy pressure to throw his support to Jeb Bush; Kasich gets a chance to repay that allegiance now. As for Kasich, it’s another opportunity to stick a dagger in Strickland, the man he toppled in a bitter campaign six years ago to become governor. The enmity between them is still clearly visible.
It’s also a chance for Kasich to help his friend weather any fallout from the man he tried but failed to beat in the Republican presidential primary.
“I’ve always been all in for Rob,” Kasich told POLITICO this week. “First of all, he’s a friend of mine and he’s a good guy. Second, he’s probably one of the most effective guys in the U.S. Senate. ... He understands how to not only be a conservative, but to get along with other people.”
Kasich added: “I really want to him to be able to stay down there and basically represent me and my family.”
Portman looks like he’ll need all the help he can get in a Senate race that will easily top $100 million.
Ohio, of course, is a top presidential swing state, and Democrats have the upper hand so far. Hillary Clinton’s lead over Donald Trump in surveys of the state ranges from 4 to 9 points, according to the most recent polls. While Portman and other vulnerable Senate GOP incumbents like Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire can argue that ticket splitters will save them even if Trump tanks in battleground states, there’s a limit how far that phenomenon can go. A double-digit loss in Ohio by Trump could doom Portman, even if the veteran lawmaker runs the perfect campaign.
As for the Portman-Strickland race, the most recent public polls show it’s a tossup. Aides to the former Democratic governor and congressman dismiss the Kasich endorsement as meaningless in a political environment dominated by presidential politics.
Yet the very tightness of this race could make Kasich the most valuable surrogate for any Republican senator up for reelection this fall. He's the most popular political figure in Ohio, with overall approval rating in the high 50s to low 60s. Among independents, a key bloc of voters for Portman, Kasich’s approval rating tops 70 percent.
Having Kasich go big for Portman does nothing but aid the incumbent, especially in what’s likely to be a razor-close contest.
"It’s incredibly helpful to me to have John’s support," Portman said, adding that he’d spoken to Kasich earlier this week to thank him for sending out another fundraising email. “I talked to his chief of staff last night about more (that) they want to do, in terms of TV ads and that sort of thing. It’s really helpful.”
“He has the ability to tell a story about Ted Strickland that nobody else can,” Portman added. “He’s the perfect messenger.”
That message echoes the case Kasich made to voters when they ousted Strickland. “During his time in office, Ohio lost more than 350,000 jobs, we ranked 48th in job creation, and our rainy day fund was drained to just 89 cents,” Kasich said in his latest fundraising email for Portman. “Our country can’t afford that kind of management.”
Portman was born in Cincinnati, and he represented the eastern part of the city during his House tenure. Kasich’s congressional district covered part of Columbus — Ohio's biggest city — and he has political strength in the I-75 corridor from Dayton to Toledo in western Ohio, home to many of the Buckeye State’s Republican voters.
Portman, 60, and Kasich, 64, served in the House together for eight years during the 1990s, including on the Budget Committee, of which Kasich eventually became chairman. They co-sponsored legislation and remained close even after they left Congress — Portman in 2005 for the George W. Bush administration and Kasich in 2001 for TV, a job with a Wall Street firm, and his eventual run for governor.
Kasich has already done eight fundraising emails for Portman, plus a direct-mail piece soliciting campaign money. Those missives — there are more to come, said Portman campaign sources — have yielded nearly $100,000.
Two of Kasich’s former presidental campaign aides have formed a PAC called Eyes on Ohio to help persuade Republican voters in the March primary to support Portman, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported on Thursday.
Yet perhaps the most important role for Kasich will be campaign appearances. Portman is planning an RV tour of the state in August, with Kasich joining him. More joint events will happen this fall, the sources said.
“Kasich is the most popular politician in Ohio,” said Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio). “He’s got enormous crossover support. He’s got incredibly high numbers among unaffiliated voters. ... He’s going to use his political capital across the finish line. It’s enormously important.”
Strickland and other Democrats doubt Kasich’s surrogacy work will help Portman much, if at all: The governor's popularity isn’t going to rub off on Portman, in their view. They say Trump is likely to hurt Portman more than Kasich will help him. Democrats assert trade is a particularly lethal issue for the incumbent: Trump has railed against international trade deals, while Portman served as U.S. trade representative in the Bush administration. If Trump hammers the trade issue in the Buckeye State, and there's no reason to think he won't, that will give Strickland an opening to hit Portman.
Sources close to Strickland said that they see some potential for ticket-splitting in this race as well, but for Trump-Strickland, based on the trade issue.
The Strickland campaign is also pounding Portman over the fact he is supporting Trump and planning to attend the GOP convention in Cleveland. Kasich has refused to endorse Trump over his Muslim immigration ban and other issues, and the governor has no plans to attend the convention. Strickland’s campaign is attacking Portman daily over his support of Trump, and the criticism is sure to intensify as the convention nears.
“While Gov Kasich is refusing to back Donald Trump and may not even appear at the GOP convention in Cleveland, Sen. Portman is continuing to endorse Trump’s toxic and divisive campaign — which is just more proof that Portman is the ultimate Washington insider who is totally out of touch with the people of Ohio,” said David Bergstein, Stickland’s spokesman. “Whenever Portman even mentions Gov. Kasich’s name, we look forward to asking him why he is refusing to follow the governor’s example and retract his endorsement of Trump.”
Strickland will get plenty of help from presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton — she’s already made multiple trips to Ohio since she effectively clinched the Democratic nomination — and from other party luminaries. Vice President Joe Biden is doing two events with Stickland on Thursday, with more likely in the fall.
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a possible vice-presidential pick for Clinton, downplayed the value of Kasich’s support for Portman.
“I don’t think you transfer much popularity that way,” Brown said. “I think the more interesting question is what Kasich is doing with Trump.”
Rally against Trump
Obama and Clinton rally against Trump
The joint campaign event in Charlotte is a reminder that their alliance remains the Democratic Party’s defining partnership.
By Annie Karni
When Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama publicly reconciled eight years ago at a celebrated summer rally in Unity, New Hampshire, the two recent rivals were still closer to being opponents than friends.
While both candidates were set on healing the Democratic Party after a divisive primary, the lead-up to the event was fraught. Did their show of warmth — a kiss on the tarmac in Washington, D.C., as they boarded a chartered plane together — appear genuine? Would their praise for each other — “she rocks,” gushed Obama, seeking to win over her supporters — seem too forced?
When President Obama takes the stage at the Charlotte Convention Center with Clinton on Tuesday afternoon for their first joint rally of the 2016 campaign, it will be most notable for how far the two leaders of the Democratic Party have come in the eight intervening years.
“It is as far from fraught as can be,” said Obama’s former chief strategist, David Axelrod, of Obama's long-anticipated campaign trail debut. “He’s been chomping at the bit to get out there. There’s so many reasons why he feels strongly about this — part of it is his genuine respect for her, part of it is his feelings about the alternative. There’s no half-hearted warrior here.”
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton confidant, said of Tuesday’s rally that unlike eight years ago, “they have such a great relationship that there’s nothing to psychoanalyze. He wants to do everything he can for her.”
Coming just weeks before Clinton is expected to announce her running mate, the Charlotte rally will also serve as a reminder that the Clinton-Obama alliance remains the Democratic Party’s defining partnership no matter whom Clinton chooses as her No. 2. The idea of the first female president following the first African-American president bonds the two leaders in their own minds and in the minds of their supporters, aides said. Some Democratic operatives with young children like to joke that their kids could be 16 before they realize a white man can serve as commander in chief.
McAuliffe, who has been pushing his home state Sen. Tim Kaine as Clinton’s running mate, outlined what Clinton is looking for in a partner on the trail. “I’ve known Hillary for 30 years — she wants someone who can be a collaborator,” he told POLITICO. “President Clinton and Al Gore used to have their weekly lunches. That’s ingrained in Hillary’s head as well. She wants a partner, she doesn’t want someone who’s going to upstage her. You want someone helping to push your agenda.”
But so far, it's the outgoing president, with his 52 percent approval rating, who fits that bill.
The risk is Donald Trump and other Republican detractors will seize on the rally as further evidence that Clinton is running for Obama’s third term. And on the heels of last week’s energetic rally with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the two events could remind voters of how Clinton on her own remains a low-appeal candidate in need of star power to generate enthusiasm.
But Obama’s popularity among the Democratic voter blocs Clinton needs outweigh any potential drawbacks. On Tuesday, what will matter more than any close study of their body language, like eight years ago, is how the president posits his case for the woman he would like to see as his successor and safeguard of his legacy. Obama allies said they expect him to deliver a first-hand account of what kind of temperament the presidency requires. As a former rival who came around to Clinton, White House aides said, Obama can also make the most convincing case to voters who remain ambivalent about her. Clinton’s own willingness to serve under the rival she once viewed as an unqualified upstart also helps to cast her in a flattering light.
The image most ingrained in Axelrod’s mind of Clinton’s service in Obama’s Cabinet, for instance, is her reaction to the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act. “The day after it passed, she got up and she gave him a big hug,” he recalled, “she was hugging and high-fiving everyone in the Situation Room. She was so fundamentally excited that this had happened. It was a touching moment. What it said was there are bigger things than egos and ambitions.”
The rally Tuesday is also expected to represent a unique moment in the campaign: Obama and Clinton are not planning many joint appearances in the months to come. “They will be more apart than together,” said a White House official. “They can both draw crowds and energize and excite voters.”
The Charlotte rally also marks a break from modern presidential election history: It’s been more than half a century since a sitting president was called upon by a potential successor for help — and truly delivered.
With approval ratings in the 20s, George W. Bush was no asset to John McCain in 2008. And hot off Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 2000, “Clinton was a very mixed bag for Al Gore,” said Democratic strategist and former Gore adviser Robert Shrum. Gore kept his distance from Clinton, rarely even calling for the advice that the insulted outgoing president was desperate to give.
George H.W. Bush in 1988 needed to make a case beyond running as Ronald Reagan’s third term and needed some distance from the popular but aging president — Reagan’s best pitch for his vice president, at a rare joint rally in California, was that playing the role of standby equipment as a vice president was a role that didn’t “fit easily on such a man.”
In Richard Nixon’s 1960 race against John F. Kennedy, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s assessment about his own vice president’s lack of experience — “If you give me a week I might think of one, I don’t remember,” he said, when asked to give an example of Nixon’s contribution to his administration — ended up in a negative ad run by the Kennedy campaign.
In contrast, Obama is the rare “unalloyed asset” for Clinton, said Shrum. “People who don’t like him are never going to vote for Hillary anyway,” he said. “There’s no downside at all. He mobilizes the base of the party; he’s got over 50 percent job approval. There’s no reason you wouldn’t use him as much as you can.”
“It’s a smart move for her, and it’s a smart move for the president,” said Roy Neel, a former adviser to Bill Clinton and Al Gore. “Obama can be extremely helpful to Hillary, certainly to rally African-American, Hispanic voters, and young people, the base that elected him in 2008.”
Originally planned for Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Clinton-Obama rally was rescheduled after the June 13 mass shooting in Orlando, and subsequently moved to the battleground state that Obama lost by a narrow margin in 2012 after having won it in 2008. The new location signals a Democratic effort to expand the map there in the wake of Trump’s recent weakness in North Carolina polls. Over the weekend, in a sign of the state’s increasing significance, Trump announced a competing rally in Raleigh the same day.
But this competing campaign stop might serve to fuel Obama’s case for Clinton.
“He can talk about what the presidency requires,” said Axelrod. “And the big argument she’s making is that she has the temperament and the experience that’s necessary for the job.”
The joint campaign event in Charlotte is a reminder that their alliance remains the Democratic Party’s defining partnership.
By Annie Karni
When Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama publicly reconciled eight years ago at a celebrated summer rally in Unity, New Hampshire, the two recent rivals were still closer to being opponents than friends.
While both candidates were set on healing the Democratic Party after a divisive primary, the lead-up to the event was fraught. Did their show of warmth — a kiss on the tarmac in Washington, D.C., as they boarded a chartered plane together — appear genuine? Would their praise for each other — “she rocks,” gushed Obama, seeking to win over her supporters — seem too forced?
When President Obama takes the stage at the Charlotte Convention Center with Clinton on Tuesday afternoon for their first joint rally of the 2016 campaign, it will be most notable for how far the two leaders of the Democratic Party have come in the eight intervening years.
“It is as far from fraught as can be,” said Obama’s former chief strategist, David Axelrod, of Obama's long-anticipated campaign trail debut. “He’s been chomping at the bit to get out there. There’s so many reasons why he feels strongly about this — part of it is his genuine respect for her, part of it is his feelings about the alternative. There’s no half-hearted warrior here.”
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton confidant, said of Tuesday’s rally that unlike eight years ago, “they have such a great relationship that there’s nothing to psychoanalyze. He wants to do everything he can for her.”
Coming just weeks before Clinton is expected to announce her running mate, the Charlotte rally will also serve as a reminder that the Clinton-Obama alliance remains the Democratic Party’s defining partnership no matter whom Clinton chooses as her No. 2. The idea of the first female president following the first African-American president bonds the two leaders in their own minds and in the minds of their supporters, aides said. Some Democratic operatives with young children like to joke that their kids could be 16 before they realize a white man can serve as commander in chief.
McAuliffe, who has been pushing his home state Sen. Tim Kaine as Clinton’s running mate, outlined what Clinton is looking for in a partner on the trail. “I’ve known Hillary for 30 years — she wants someone who can be a collaborator,” he told POLITICO. “President Clinton and Al Gore used to have their weekly lunches. That’s ingrained in Hillary’s head as well. She wants a partner, she doesn’t want someone who’s going to upstage her. You want someone helping to push your agenda.”
But so far, it's the outgoing president, with his 52 percent approval rating, who fits that bill.
The risk is Donald Trump and other Republican detractors will seize on the rally as further evidence that Clinton is running for Obama’s third term. And on the heels of last week’s energetic rally with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the two events could remind voters of how Clinton on her own remains a low-appeal candidate in need of star power to generate enthusiasm.
But Obama’s popularity among the Democratic voter blocs Clinton needs outweigh any potential drawbacks. On Tuesday, what will matter more than any close study of their body language, like eight years ago, is how the president posits his case for the woman he would like to see as his successor and safeguard of his legacy. Obama allies said they expect him to deliver a first-hand account of what kind of temperament the presidency requires. As a former rival who came around to Clinton, White House aides said, Obama can also make the most convincing case to voters who remain ambivalent about her. Clinton’s own willingness to serve under the rival she once viewed as an unqualified upstart also helps to cast her in a flattering light.
The image most ingrained in Axelrod’s mind of Clinton’s service in Obama’s Cabinet, for instance, is her reaction to the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act. “The day after it passed, she got up and she gave him a big hug,” he recalled, “she was hugging and high-fiving everyone in the Situation Room. She was so fundamentally excited that this had happened. It was a touching moment. What it said was there are bigger things than egos and ambitions.”
The rally Tuesday is also expected to represent a unique moment in the campaign: Obama and Clinton are not planning many joint appearances in the months to come. “They will be more apart than together,” said a White House official. “They can both draw crowds and energize and excite voters.”
The Charlotte rally also marks a break from modern presidential election history: It’s been more than half a century since a sitting president was called upon by a potential successor for help — and truly delivered.
With approval ratings in the 20s, George W. Bush was no asset to John McCain in 2008. And hot off Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 2000, “Clinton was a very mixed bag for Al Gore,” said Democratic strategist and former Gore adviser Robert Shrum. Gore kept his distance from Clinton, rarely even calling for the advice that the insulted outgoing president was desperate to give.
George H.W. Bush in 1988 needed to make a case beyond running as Ronald Reagan’s third term and needed some distance from the popular but aging president — Reagan’s best pitch for his vice president, at a rare joint rally in California, was that playing the role of standby equipment as a vice president was a role that didn’t “fit easily on such a man.”
In Richard Nixon’s 1960 race against John F. Kennedy, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s assessment about his own vice president’s lack of experience — “If you give me a week I might think of one, I don’t remember,” he said, when asked to give an example of Nixon’s contribution to his administration — ended up in a negative ad run by the Kennedy campaign.
In contrast, Obama is the rare “unalloyed asset” for Clinton, said Shrum. “People who don’t like him are never going to vote for Hillary anyway,” he said. “There’s no downside at all. He mobilizes the base of the party; he’s got over 50 percent job approval. There’s no reason you wouldn’t use him as much as you can.”
“It’s a smart move for her, and it’s a smart move for the president,” said Roy Neel, a former adviser to Bill Clinton and Al Gore. “Obama can be extremely helpful to Hillary, certainly to rally African-American, Hispanic voters, and young people, the base that elected him in 2008.”
Originally planned for Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Clinton-Obama rally was rescheduled after the June 13 mass shooting in Orlando, and subsequently moved to the battleground state that Obama lost by a narrow margin in 2012 after having won it in 2008. The new location signals a Democratic effort to expand the map there in the wake of Trump’s recent weakness in North Carolina polls. Over the weekend, in a sign of the state’s increasing significance, Trump announced a competing rally in Raleigh the same day.
But this competing campaign stop might serve to fuel Obama’s case for Clinton.
“He can talk about what the presidency requires,” said Axelrod. “And the big argument she’s making is that she has the temperament and the experience that’s necessary for the job.”
Pork Ship
Congress Buys the Navy a $400 Million Pork Ship
The secretary of defense doesn't want it. Congress is about to write the check anyway.
By Lauren Chadwick and R. Jeffrey Smith
In the nearly eight years since the first Littoral Combat Ship was delivered to the Navy, it hasn’t won many ardent fans beyond the Navy, its home-state lawmakers or the employees of the two shipbuilders producing dueling models. The ships’ maiden voyages have been marked by cracked hulls, engine failures, unexpected rusting, software snafus, weapons glitches and persistent criticism of how vulnerable they are to an attack.
“The ship is not reliable,” the Pentagon’s operational test and evaluation director said in a report released in January, only the most recent such judgment it has made. During 113 days of testing on one ship last year, some of the engines and water jets responsible for propelling the ship forward were out of commission for 45 days.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter expressed his concern last December by ordering the overall number of new ships trimmed from 52 to 40, saving billions of dollars. The department's leaders also ordered production scaled back from three to two ships in 2017 and said all the work should eventually go to just one of the two shipyards.
But lawmakers on Capitol Hill—provoked or perhaps inspired by a steady stream of contractor donations and unusually determined Navy lobbying—are now on the verge of ordering the Pentagon to build more than Carter wanted.
A defense appropriations bill moving toward Senate approval in coming days or weeks directs that $475 million be spent by the Navy to procure an extra Littoral Combat Ship next year. The House of Representatives has already passed legislation ordering that $384 million be spent on the extra ship. So it’s virtually certain to happen, a prospect that cheers the Navy greatly but has evoked dismay among the ships’ many critics.
The extra spending is a direct repudiation of the secretary of defense, putting the Navy back on track with its original three-ship production schedule for 2017—and pushing the decision about the fate and total size of the LCS fleet off to the next president.
The Obama administration “strongly objects” to buying the extra ship, the White House said in a budget message to Congress on June 14. It said just two are needed now to preserve a competition that “ensures the best price for the taxpayer on the remaining ships” and that spending more would needlessly drain funds from other military priorities, including undersea, surface and aviation programs. Carter made clear at the time he cut back the program that there’s no love lost between his office and the Navy’s command, which he accused in a blunt letter of ignoring technical risks, neglecting warfighting needs and prioritizing warship “quantity over lethality.”
The extra ship, which is part of a program with an estimated life-cycle cost of at least $45 billion, is just one in a long list of armaments that Congress is about to force the Pentagon to buy against its will—following an annual ritual that routinely pads spending for the nation’s defense by billions of dollars and sometimes gives U.S. soldiers equipment that doesn’t work or they don’t need.
According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit spending watchdog based in Washington, D.C., the House bill passed on June 16 contains at least $6.7 billion worth of research and armaments that the Defense Department’s leaders did not request in their February budget proposal. That’s even higher than the $4.6 billion in unwanted expenditures that Congress approved last year, the group says.
The House bill, for example, includes $1.5 billion for an unrequested modern “amphibious” warship for dual land and sea missions, $400 million for four unrequested C-40 aircraft to carry cargo and commanders, and $1 billion worth of unrequested National Guard equipment, a perennial pork-barrel favorite, the Taxpayers for Common Sense report said. The Senate bill itself would add almost $4.3 billion for 49 unrequested programs, including $1 billion for a coast guard ship to break ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, $130 million extra for an unspecified classified program, and $900 million worth of unrequested National Guard equipment.
“Congress wants to pass out the cash and look like they’re being strong on defense,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense and a former U.S. Coast Guard officer. He adds that members are also keen to help home-state contractors, including some that earn billions of dollars annually from Pentagon spending and whose employees in turn give generously to key lawmakers who support the weapons systems they make or service.
Struggling to meet minimal requirements
The LCS was conceived as an unusual multimission ship platform, capable of being used in shallow water to help fight battles on shore (“littoral” denotes a region along a shore) as well as in deep-water engagements, as a replacement for existing mine sweepers, frigates and coastal patrol craft. It was to be equipped to counter armed boats, submarines or mines by reconfiguring the ships’ weapon systems, sensors and crews according to needs of the moment.
In that sense, according to critics, it is unfortunately the seagoing equivalent of the Air Force’s trillion-dollar F-35 fighter plane: designed too ambitiously to fulfill too many roles and, as a consequence, well over its budget, flawed in its execution and struggling to meet even minimal operational requirements.
Among the program's more notorious missteps, the first of the new littoral combat ships to be deployed, named the USS Freedom, was immobilized in the South China Sea—a key future operating area—during a trial run in 2013, after also experiencing a cracked hull and unexpected rusting. A year later, auditors at the Government Accountability Office reported that the USS Freedom had spent 58 percent of its 10-month deployment idle in port in Singapore.
Last December, a second ship, the USS Milwaukee, broke down and had to be towed 40 miles after a software malfunction failed to allow the clutch to transfer between the warship’s gas turbines and diesel engines, spewing metallic debris into the gears. Another ship, the USS Fort Worth, was sidelined in January—and remains in Singapore today—because its operators failed to follow proper maintenance procedures and adequate lubricants did not reach those same gears, which are vital to the operation of waterjets needed for high-speed operation.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Navy captain, told the service’s officials in a February letter cosigned by the committee’s ranking Democrat, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, that LCS “seaframe failures and system reliability shortfalls” as well as its weak armaments had made him highly skeptical that the ships could defeat anything more than “a small number of lightly armed boats”—well short of what he cited as the Navy’s boasts that it could put “the enemy fleet on the bottom of the ocean.”
McCain said the program had “significant design, testing, integration and deployment challenges.” And his committee eventually approved a defense authorization bill that supported the Obama administration’s LCS production cutback. But it wasn’t the last word.
Despite the ship's troubles, the Navy wanted more. In March, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus told the House Armed Services Committee that the military branch had a “validated need” for 52 littoral combat ships, 12 more than his boss at the Pentagon said it did. Mabus went on to say that Carter’s plan to choose one shipyard to make most of the ships instead of two would drive up the price. At an industry conference in January, he called the overall program a “success story.”
Key congressmen rushed to support Mabus. Led by Reps. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) and Reid Ribble (R-Wis), who represent districts that house the two competing shipbuilders, roughly 40 House lawmakers signed two April letters to the House Armed Services Committee and House Committee on Appropriations applauding the ship’s “production efficiencies and cost savings” and stating that reductions to the fleet would “hinder the Navy’s ability to respond to threats around the globe.”
The shipyards in question—Austal USA, in Mobile, Alabama, and Lockheed Martin’s Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wisconsin—reinforced this message with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of lobbying from January to March 2016, according to reports they filed with the House and Senate clerks. Lockheed said it spent $3.65 million to lobby Congress on all issues between January and March, with an unspecified portion related to shipbuilding. Austal USA spent $189,096 lobbying just on the shipbuilding provisions in House and Senate defense appropriations bills.
Austal USA employed 12 lobbyists, almost all of whom previously worked in government, including on appropriations committees, according to information gathered by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C. Lockheed employed 70 lobbyists, according to the center’s data, of whom over two-thirds had previously been in government posts, including at the Department of Defense and on appropriations committees. At least six of Lockheed’s lobbyists formerly worked with the Navy; one of Austal USA’s lobbyists was a naval captain, and another previously worked for Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a strong supporter of the LCS.
The two contractors’ home-state lawmakers didn't stop at signing the letters. “Congress should not allow a Secretary of Defense with less than a year left in office to decide the fate of a critical Navy program like the LCS,” Byrne said in a statement before the amendment passed in April. A provision he successfully inserted in the House-passed bill would block Carter’s plan to give all the work to just one shipyard.
“The LCS is critical to our Navy’s ability to respond to current and future threats across the world,” Shelby said in a statement after Carter announced his plan in December. “I will fight tooth and nail against this misguided attempt to needlessly undermine the security of our nation and the American people.”
It's clear why home-state lawmakers would support the extra spending. But the influence of the shipbuilders runs far deeper at the Capitol. Lockheed Martin has given campaign funds to almost every current Senate and House defense appropriations subcommittee member, a total of at least $2.3 million from 1999 to 2015, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis of Federal Election Commission filings and Center for Responsive Politics data. Though the contractor is not allowed to give directly to candidates, Lockheed Martin’s employees can contribute, and its company-directed political action committee, which collects employee and other funds, can donate.
Since 1998, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), the key House subcommittee chairman, has received at least $151,850 from Lockheed Martin’s employees and PAC; the amounts rose after he assumed that role in late 2013. Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the vice chairwoman, has received at least $341,850 in contributions from Lockheed Martin’s employees and PAC, including those to her leadership PAC, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The ranking member, Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), has received at least $102,100 in individual and PAC donations. The House Appropriations Committee chairman, Rep. Hal Rogers(R-Ky.), also received at least $82,475 from Lockheed Martin’s PAC and employees.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, vice chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, received more than $72,000 from Lockheed Martin’s employees and PAC since 1989. Senate defense appropriations chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) received over $40,000. Austal USA, a subsidiary of an Australian defense firm that mainly makes ships and has a much narrower set of legislative interests, has given thousands of dollars to Shelby and to two House defense appropriators.
Spokesmen for Cochran, Granger and Shelby said the contributions did not influence their support for the ship; the others did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“When you’re the chair or senior member of the defense appropriations committee, you’re going to get a lot of money from various defense contractors" who hope "you act favorably on their wants,” Ellis said. If the contractors have been making campaign contributions “right along, they can potentially get to the senior members of the committee whether [the members]…represent them or not.”
Upgrades with scant impact
Supporters of the program say that future ships will be different than those produced so far. They’ve been formally rebranded from "LCS" and are now considered mere frigates—a less ambitious naval designation referring generally to any fast and small ship. They are supposed to be equipped with a bit more armor, a better missile decoy system, improved electronic warfare gear and a better air-search radar, which will boost their costs by an estimated 20 percent to 30 percent. But the troubled anti-mine warfare technology the ships were meant to have—which failed repeatedly in tests—will be dropped altogether, leaving that mission to more proven solutions.
The rebranding came in the aftermath of a special study ordered by then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in 2014, which used statistical modeling to assess the potential capabilities, costs and delivery dates of many possible new designs. The Navy decided as a result of the study to procure a version of the warship that was “not substantially different” from the littoral combat ship, according to a 56-page report issued June 9 by the GAO.
Due to space, weight, power and cooling constraints, it chose the “least capable” design of all the available options, a frigate that could not fulfill all the anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare tasks that were previously considered important, the report said. Navy officials agreed their selection contained only minor modifications to the LCS but said their choice was dictated by a need to operate the ship militarily by 2020 and to avoid the higher expenses of a more sweeping redesign.
The GAO report nonetheless cited internal Pentagon warnings that, despite the technical fixes, the new frigate's chance of surviving an attack is unlikely to be greatly improved. The report noted that its range will be as much as 30 percent lower and said it will not be capable of defending other ships in a pitched sea battle. It said the Navy, in its review of alternatives, had underestimated the new frigate’s likely costs, while overstating the costs of crew manning for rival ship designs.
“The Navy’s business case for the acquisition of the frigate is compromised,” the GAO said, “by unknowns related to the ship’s design, cost, and program oversight plans.”
The GAO report concluded, moreover, that proceeding with the production of additional ships without first conducting more testing is a mistake. The last of the Navy’s LCS survivability tests will be completed in 2018, by which time 18 of the ships will have been completed and delivered to the service. The ships are already a year or more behind schedule and over budget, and so the GAO suggested a "production pause" in which Congress would fund no new ships at all in 2017, not even the two that the Pentagon’s leadership says it wants.
Some of the ships’ supporters say these growing pains are common with any new ship. Ronald O’Rourke, a naval issues analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said in testimony for the House Armed Services Committee in 2014 that many naval acquisition programs stumble in the beginning. The Navy’s favorite ships today were often “not very well regarded in earlier years,” O’Rourke said.
But extensive mishaps with the LCS have called into question not just the ship, but the Navy's ability to make decisions about what it really needs. In a report released June 14, O’Rourke cited naval officials’ admissions dating back to 2003 that it had not studied carefully enough whether the LCS is the right ship for warfare in shallow waters, an omission that he said explains many of its troubles today—but which don't seem to undermine their confidence that they need to sail forward with the program, full speed ahead.
The secretary of defense doesn't want it. Congress is about to write the check anyway.
By Lauren Chadwick and R. Jeffrey Smith
In the nearly eight years since the first Littoral Combat Ship was delivered to the Navy, it hasn’t won many ardent fans beyond the Navy, its home-state lawmakers or the employees of the two shipbuilders producing dueling models. The ships’ maiden voyages have been marked by cracked hulls, engine failures, unexpected rusting, software snafus, weapons glitches and persistent criticism of how vulnerable they are to an attack.
“The ship is not reliable,” the Pentagon’s operational test and evaluation director said in a report released in January, only the most recent such judgment it has made. During 113 days of testing on one ship last year, some of the engines and water jets responsible for propelling the ship forward were out of commission for 45 days.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter expressed his concern last December by ordering the overall number of new ships trimmed from 52 to 40, saving billions of dollars. The department's leaders also ordered production scaled back from three to two ships in 2017 and said all the work should eventually go to just one of the two shipyards.
But lawmakers on Capitol Hill—provoked or perhaps inspired by a steady stream of contractor donations and unusually determined Navy lobbying—are now on the verge of ordering the Pentagon to build more than Carter wanted.
A defense appropriations bill moving toward Senate approval in coming days or weeks directs that $475 million be spent by the Navy to procure an extra Littoral Combat Ship next year. The House of Representatives has already passed legislation ordering that $384 million be spent on the extra ship. So it’s virtually certain to happen, a prospect that cheers the Navy greatly but has evoked dismay among the ships’ many critics.
The extra spending is a direct repudiation of the secretary of defense, putting the Navy back on track with its original three-ship production schedule for 2017—and pushing the decision about the fate and total size of the LCS fleet off to the next president.
The Obama administration “strongly objects” to buying the extra ship, the White House said in a budget message to Congress on June 14. It said just two are needed now to preserve a competition that “ensures the best price for the taxpayer on the remaining ships” and that spending more would needlessly drain funds from other military priorities, including undersea, surface and aviation programs. Carter made clear at the time he cut back the program that there’s no love lost between his office and the Navy’s command, which he accused in a blunt letter of ignoring technical risks, neglecting warfighting needs and prioritizing warship “quantity over lethality.”
The extra ship, which is part of a program with an estimated life-cycle cost of at least $45 billion, is just one in a long list of armaments that Congress is about to force the Pentagon to buy against its will—following an annual ritual that routinely pads spending for the nation’s defense by billions of dollars and sometimes gives U.S. soldiers equipment that doesn’t work or they don’t need.
According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit spending watchdog based in Washington, D.C., the House bill passed on June 16 contains at least $6.7 billion worth of research and armaments that the Defense Department’s leaders did not request in their February budget proposal. That’s even higher than the $4.6 billion in unwanted expenditures that Congress approved last year, the group says.
The House bill, for example, includes $1.5 billion for an unrequested modern “amphibious” warship for dual land and sea missions, $400 million for four unrequested C-40 aircraft to carry cargo and commanders, and $1 billion worth of unrequested National Guard equipment, a perennial pork-barrel favorite, the Taxpayers for Common Sense report said. The Senate bill itself would add almost $4.3 billion for 49 unrequested programs, including $1 billion for a coast guard ship to break ice in the Arctic and Antarctic, $130 million extra for an unspecified classified program, and $900 million worth of unrequested National Guard equipment.
“Congress wants to pass out the cash and look like they’re being strong on defense,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense and a former U.S. Coast Guard officer. He adds that members are also keen to help home-state contractors, including some that earn billions of dollars annually from Pentagon spending and whose employees in turn give generously to key lawmakers who support the weapons systems they make or service.
Struggling to meet minimal requirements
The LCS was conceived as an unusual multimission ship platform, capable of being used in shallow water to help fight battles on shore (“littoral” denotes a region along a shore) as well as in deep-water engagements, as a replacement for existing mine sweepers, frigates and coastal patrol craft. It was to be equipped to counter armed boats, submarines or mines by reconfiguring the ships’ weapon systems, sensors and crews according to needs of the moment.
In that sense, according to critics, it is unfortunately the seagoing equivalent of the Air Force’s trillion-dollar F-35 fighter plane: designed too ambitiously to fulfill too many roles and, as a consequence, well over its budget, flawed in its execution and struggling to meet even minimal operational requirements.
Among the program's more notorious missteps, the first of the new littoral combat ships to be deployed, named the USS Freedom, was immobilized in the South China Sea—a key future operating area—during a trial run in 2013, after also experiencing a cracked hull and unexpected rusting. A year later, auditors at the Government Accountability Office reported that the USS Freedom had spent 58 percent of its 10-month deployment idle in port in Singapore.
Last December, a second ship, the USS Milwaukee, broke down and had to be towed 40 miles after a software malfunction failed to allow the clutch to transfer between the warship’s gas turbines and diesel engines, spewing metallic debris into the gears. Another ship, the USS Fort Worth, was sidelined in January—and remains in Singapore today—because its operators failed to follow proper maintenance procedures and adequate lubricants did not reach those same gears, which are vital to the operation of waterjets needed for high-speed operation.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), a former Navy captain, told the service’s officials in a February letter cosigned by the committee’s ranking Democrat, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, that LCS “seaframe failures and system reliability shortfalls” as well as its weak armaments had made him highly skeptical that the ships could defeat anything more than “a small number of lightly armed boats”—well short of what he cited as the Navy’s boasts that it could put “the enemy fleet on the bottom of the ocean.”
McCain said the program had “significant design, testing, integration and deployment challenges.” And his committee eventually approved a defense authorization bill that supported the Obama administration’s LCS production cutback. But it wasn’t the last word.
Despite the ship's troubles, the Navy wanted more. In March, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus told the House Armed Services Committee that the military branch had a “validated need” for 52 littoral combat ships, 12 more than his boss at the Pentagon said it did. Mabus went on to say that Carter’s plan to choose one shipyard to make most of the ships instead of two would drive up the price. At an industry conference in January, he called the overall program a “success story.”
Key congressmen rushed to support Mabus. Led by Reps. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) and Reid Ribble (R-Wis), who represent districts that house the two competing shipbuilders, roughly 40 House lawmakers signed two April letters to the House Armed Services Committee and House Committee on Appropriations applauding the ship’s “production efficiencies and cost savings” and stating that reductions to the fleet would “hinder the Navy’s ability to respond to threats around the globe.”
The shipyards in question—Austal USA, in Mobile, Alabama, and Lockheed Martin’s Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wisconsin—reinforced this message with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of lobbying from January to March 2016, according to reports they filed with the House and Senate clerks. Lockheed said it spent $3.65 million to lobby Congress on all issues between January and March, with an unspecified portion related to shipbuilding. Austal USA spent $189,096 lobbying just on the shipbuilding provisions in House and Senate defense appropriations bills.
Austal USA employed 12 lobbyists, almost all of whom previously worked in government, including on appropriations committees, according to information gathered by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C. Lockheed employed 70 lobbyists, according to the center’s data, of whom over two-thirds had previously been in government posts, including at the Department of Defense and on appropriations committees. At least six of Lockheed’s lobbyists formerly worked with the Navy; one of Austal USA’s lobbyists was a naval captain, and another previously worked for Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a strong supporter of the LCS.
The two contractors’ home-state lawmakers didn't stop at signing the letters. “Congress should not allow a Secretary of Defense with less than a year left in office to decide the fate of a critical Navy program like the LCS,” Byrne said in a statement before the amendment passed in April. A provision he successfully inserted in the House-passed bill would block Carter’s plan to give all the work to just one shipyard.
“The LCS is critical to our Navy’s ability to respond to current and future threats across the world,” Shelby said in a statement after Carter announced his plan in December. “I will fight tooth and nail against this misguided attempt to needlessly undermine the security of our nation and the American people.”
It's clear why home-state lawmakers would support the extra spending. But the influence of the shipbuilders runs far deeper at the Capitol. Lockheed Martin has given campaign funds to almost every current Senate and House defense appropriations subcommittee member, a total of at least $2.3 million from 1999 to 2015, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis of Federal Election Commission filings and Center for Responsive Politics data. Though the contractor is not allowed to give directly to candidates, Lockheed Martin’s employees can contribute, and its company-directed political action committee, which collects employee and other funds, can donate.
Since 1998, Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), the key House subcommittee chairman, has received at least $151,850 from Lockheed Martin’s employees and PAC; the amounts rose after he assumed that role in late 2013. Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the vice chairwoman, has received at least $341,850 in contributions from Lockheed Martin’s employees and PAC, including those to her leadership PAC, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The ranking member, Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), has received at least $102,100 in individual and PAC donations. The House Appropriations Committee chairman, Rep. Hal Rogers(R-Ky.), also received at least $82,475 from Lockheed Martin’s PAC and employees.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, vice chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, received more than $72,000 from Lockheed Martin’s employees and PAC since 1989. Senate defense appropriations chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) received over $40,000. Austal USA, a subsidiary of an Australian defense firm that mainly makes ships and has a much narrower set of legislative interests, has given thousands of dollars to Shelby and to two House defense appropriators.
Spokesmen for Cochran, Granger and Shelby said the contributions did not influence their support for the ship; the others did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“When you’re the chair or senior member of the defense appropriations committee, you’re going to get a lot of money from various defense contractors" who hope "you act favorably on their wants,” Ellis said. If the contractors have been making campaign contributions “right along, they can potentially get to the senior members of the committee whether [the members]…represent them or not.”
Upgrades with scant impact
Supporters of the program say that future ships will be different than those produced so far. They’ve been formally rebranded from "LCS" and are now considered mere frigates—a less ambitious naval designation referring generally to any fast and small ship. They are supposed to be equipped with a bit more armor, a better missile decoy system, improved electronic warfare gear and a better air-search radar, which will boost their costs by an estimated 20 percent to 30 percent. But the troubled anti-mine warfare technology the ships were meant to have—which failed repeatedly in tests—will be dropped altogether, leaving that mission to more proven solutions.
The rebranding came in the aftermath of a special study ordered by then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in 2014, which used statistical modeling to assess the potential capabilities, costs and delivery dates of many possible new designs. The Navy decided as a result of the study to procure a version of the warship that was “not substantially different” from the littoral combat ship, according to a 56-page report issued June 9 by the GAO.
Due to space, weight, power and cooling constraints, it chose the “least capable” design of all the available options, a frigate that could not fulfill all the anti-submarine warfare and surface warfare tasks that were previously considered important, the report said. Navy officials agreed their selection contained only minor modifications to the LCS but said their choice was dictated by a need to operate the ship militarily by 2020 and to avoid the higher expenses of a more sweeping redesign.
The GAO report nonetheless cited internal Pentagon warnings that, despite the technical fixes, the new frigate's chance of surviving an attack is unlikely to be greatly improved. The report noted that its range will be as much as 30 percent lower and said it will not be capable of defending other ships in a pitched sea battle. It said the Navy, in its review of alternatives, had underestimated the new frigate’s likely costs, while overstating the costs of crew manning for rival ship designs.
“The Navy’s business case for the acquisition of the frigate is compromised,” the GAO said, “by unknowns related to the ship’s design, cost, and program oversight plans.”
The GAO report concluded, moreover, that proceeding with the production of additional ships without first conducting more testing is a mistake. The last of the Navy’s LCS survivability tests will be completed in 2018, by which time 18 of the ships will have been completed and delivered to the service. The ships are already a year or more behind schedule and over budget, and so the GAO suggested a "production pause" in which Congress would fund no new ships at all in 2017, not even the two that the Pentagon’s leadership says it wants.
Some of the ships’ supporters say these growing pains are common with any new ship. Ronald O’Rourke, a naval issues analyst at the Congressional Research Service, said in testimony for the House Armed Services Committee in 2014 that many naval acquisition programs stumble in the beginning. The Navy’s favorite ships today were often “not very well regarded in earlier years,” O’Rourke said.
But extensive mishaps with the LCS have called into question not just the ship, but the Navy's ability to make decisions about what it really needs. In a report released June 14, O’Rourke cited naval officials’ admissions dating back to 2003 that it had not studied carefully enough whether the LCS is the right ship for warfare in shallow waters, an omission that he said explains many of its troubles today—but which don't seem to undermine their confidence that they need to sail forward with the program, full speed ahead.
Approach
Approaching over the north pole after nearly a five-year journey, Juno enjoys a perspective on Jupiter not often seen, even by spacecraft from Earth that usually swing by closer to Jupiter's equator. Looking down toward the ruling gas giant from a distance of 10.9 million kilometers, the spacecraft's JunoCam captured this image with Jupiter's nightside and orbiting entourage of four large Galilean moons on June 21. JunoCam is intended to provide close-up views of the gas giant's cloudy zoned and belted atmosphere. On July 4 (July 5 UT) Juno is set to burn its main engine to slow down and be captured into its own orbit around the giant planet. If all goes well, it will be the first spacecraft to orbit the poles of Jupiter, skimming to within 5,000 kilometers of the Jovian cloud tops during the 20 month mission.
Rho Ophiuchi
The many spectacular colors of the Rho Ophiuchi (oh'-fee-yu-kee) clouds highlight the many processes that occur there. The blue regions shine primarily by reflected light. Blue light from the star Rho Ophiuchi and nearby stars reflects more efficiently off this portion of the nebula than red light. The Earth's daytime sky appears blue for the same reason. The red and yellow regions shine primarily because of emission from the nebula's atomic and molecular gas. Light from nearby blue stars - more energetic than the bright star Antares - knocks electrons away from the gas, which then shines when the electrons recombine with the gas. The dark brown regions are caused by dust grains - born in young stellar atmospheres - which effectively block light emitted behind them. The Rho Ophiuchi star clouds, well in front of the globular cluster M4 visible here on the upper right, are even more colorful than humans can see - the clouds emits light in every wavelength band from the radio to the gamma-ray.
New Horizons Receives Mission Extension
New Horizons Receives Mission Extension to Kuiper Belt, Dawn to Remain at Ceres
Following its historic first-ever flyby of Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons mission has received the green light to fly onward to an object deeper in the Kuiper Belt, known as 2014 MU69. The spacecraft’s planned rendezvous with the ancient object – considered one of the early building blocks of the solar system -- is Jan. 1, 2019.
“The New Horizons mission to Pluto exceeded our expectations and even today the data from the spacecraft continue to surprise,” said NASA’s Director of Planetary Science Jim Green. “We’re excited to continue onward into the dark depths of the outer solar system to a science target that wasn’t even discovered when the spacecraft launched.”
Based upon the 2016 Planetary Mission Senior Review Panel report, NASA this week directed nine extended missions to plan for continued operations through fiscal years 2017 and 2018. Final decisions on mission extensions are contingent on the outcome of the annual budget process.
In addition to the extension of the New Horizons mission, NASA determined that the Dawn spacecraft should remain at the dwarf planet Ceres, rather than changing course to the main belt asteroid Adeona.
Green noted that NASA relies on the scientific assessment by the Senior Review Panel in making its decision on which extended mission option to approve. “The long-term monitoring of Ceres, particularly as it gets closer to perihelion – the part of its orbit with the shortest distance to the sun -- has the potential to provide more significant science discoveries than a flyby of Adeona,” he said.
Following its historic first-ever flyby of Pluto, NASA’s New Horizons mission has received the green light to fly onward to an object deeper in the Kuiper Belt, known as 2014 MU69. The spacecraft’s planned rendezvous with the ancient object – considered one of the early building blocks of the solar system -- is Jan. 1, 2019.
“The New Horizons mission to Pluto exceeded our expectations and even today the data from the spacecraft continue to surprise,” said NASA’s Director of Planetary Science Jim Green. “We’re excited to continue onward into the dark depths of the outer solar system to a science target that wasn’t even discovered when the spacecraft launched.”
Based upon the 2016 Planetary Mission Senior Review Panel report, NASA this week directed nine extended missions to plan for continued operations through fiscal years 2017 and 2018. Final decisions on mission extensions are contingent on the outcome of the annual budget process.
In addition to the extension of the New Horizons mission, NASA determined that the Dawn spacecraft should remain at the dwarf planet Ceres, rather than changing course to the main belt asteroid Adeona.
Green noted that NASA relies on the scientific assessment by the Senior Review Panel in making its decision on which extended mission option to approve. “The long-term monitoring of Ceres, particularly as it gets closer to perihelion – the part of its orbit with the shortest distance to the sun -- has the potential to provide more significant science discoveries than a flyby of Adeona,” he said.
Juno Spacecraft in Orbit
NASA's Juno Spacecraft in Orbit Around Mighty Jupiter
After an almost five-year journey to the solar system’s largest planet, NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit during a 35-minute engine burn. Confirmation that the burn had completed was received on Earth at 8:53 p.m. PDT (11:53 p.m. EDT) Monday, July 4.
“Independence Day always is something to celebrate, but today we can add to America’s birthday another reason to cheer -- Juno is at Jupiter,” said NASA administrator Charlie Bolden. “And what is more American than a NASA mission going boldly where no spacecraft has gone before? With Juno, we will investigate the unknowns of Jupiter’s massive radiation belts to delve deep into not only the planet’s interior, but into how Jupiter was born and how our entire solar system evolved.”
Confirmation of a successful orbit insertion was received from Juno tracking data monitored at the navigation facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, as well as at the Lockheed Martin Juno operations center in Littleton, Colorado. The telemetry and tracking data were received by NASA's Deep Space Network antennas in Goldstone, California, and Canberra, Australia.
“This is the one time I don’t mind being stuck in a windowless room on the night of the 4th of July,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “The mission team did great. The spacecraft did great. We are looking great. It’s a great day.”
Preplanned events leading up to the orbital insertion engine burn included changing the spacecraft’s attitude to point the main engine in the desired direction and then increasing the spacecraft’s rotation rate from 2 to 5 revolutions per minute (RPM) to help stabilize it..
The burn of Juno’s 645-Newton Leros-1b main engine began on time at 8:18 p.m. PDT (11:18 p.m. EDT), decreasing the spacecraft’s velocity by 1,212 miles per hour (542 meters per second) and allowing Juno to be captured in orbit around Jupiter. Soon after the burn was completed, Juno turned so that the sun’s rays could once again reach the 18,698 individual solar cells that give Juno its energy.
“The spacecraft worked perfectly, which is always nice when you’re driving a vehicle with 1.7 billion miles on the odometer,” said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager from JPL. “Jupiter orbit insertion was a big step and the most challenging remaining in our mission plan, but there are others that have to occur before we can give the science team the mission they are looking for.”
Over the next few months, Juno’s mission and science teams will perform final testing on the spacecraft’s subsystems, final calibration of science instruments and some science collection.
“Our official science collection phase begins in October, but we’ve figured out a way to collect data a lot earlier than that,” said Bolton. “Which when you’re talking about the single biggest planetary body in the solar system is a really good thing. There is a lot to see and do here.”
Juno's principal goal is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. With its suite of nine science instruments, Juno will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiter's intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, and observe the planet's auroras. The mission also will let us take a giant step forward in our understanding of how giant planets form and the role these titans played in putting together the rest of the solar system. As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter also can provide critical knowledge for understanding the planetary systems being discovered around other stars.
The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. JPL manages the Juno mission for NASA. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
After an almost five-year journey to the solar system’s largest planet, NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully entered Jupiter’s orbit during a 35-minute engine burn. Confirmation that the burn had completed was received on Earth at 8:53 p.m. PDT (11:53 p.m. EDT) Monday, July 4.
“Independence Day always is something to celebrate, but today we can add to America’s birthday another reason to cheer -- Juno is at Jupiter,” said NASA administrator Charlie Bolden. “And what is more American than a NASA mission going boldly where no spacecraft has gone before? With Juno, we will investigate the unknowns of Jupiter’s massive radiation belts to delve deep into not only the planet’s interior, but into how Jupiter was born and how our entire solar system evolved.”
Confirmation of a successful orbit insertion was received from Juno tracking data monitored at the navigation facility at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, as well as at the Lockheed Martin Juno operations center in Littleton, Colorado. The telemetry and tracking data were received by NASA's Deep Space Network antennas in Goldstone, California, and Canberra, Australia.
“This is the one time I don’t mind being stuck in a windowless room on the night of the 4th of July,” said Scott Bolton, principal investigator of Juno from Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “The mission team did great. The spacecraft did great. We are looking great. It’s a great day.”
Preplanned events leading up to the orbital insertion engine burn included changing the spacecraft’s attitude to point the main engine in the desired direction and then increasing the spacecraft’s rotation rate from 2 to 5 revolutions per minute (RPM) to help stabilize it..
The burn of Juno’s 645-Newton Leros-1b main engine began on time at 8:18 p.m. PDT (11:18 p.m. EDT), decreasing the spacecraft’s velocity by 1,212 miles per hour (542 meters per second) and allowing Juno to be captured in orbit around Jupiter. Soon after the burn was completed, Juno turned so that the sun’s rays could once again reach the 18,698 individual solar cells that give Juno its energy.
“The spacecraft worked perfectly, which is always nice when you’re driving a vehicle with 1.7 billion miles on the odometer,” said Rick Nybakken, Juno project manager from JPL. “Jupiter orbit insertion was a big step and the most challenging remaining in our mission plan, but there are others that have to occur before we can give the science team the mission they are looking for.”
Over the next few months, Juno’s mission and science teams will perform final testing on the spacecraft’s subsystems, final calibration of science instruments and some science collection.
“Our official science collection phase begins in October, but we’ve figured out a way to collect data a lot earlier than that,” said Bolton. “Which when you’re talking about the single biggest planetary body in the solar system is a really good thing. There is a lot to see and do here.”
Juno's principal goal is to understand the origin and evolution of Jupiter. With its suite of nine science instruments, Juno will investigate the existence of a solid planetary core, map Jupiter's intense magnetic field, measure the amount of water and ammonia in the deep atmosphere, and observe the planet's auroras. The mission also will let us take a giant step forward in our understanding of how giant planets form and the role these titans played in putting together the rest of the solar system. As our primary example of a giant planet, Jupiter also can provide critical knowledge for understanding the planetary systems being discovered around other stars.
The Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. JPL manages the Juno mission for NASA. Juno is part of NASA's New Frontiers Program, managed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. Lockheed Martin Space Systems in Denver built the spacecraft. The California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.
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