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cali

(114,904 posts)
Sun Apr 14, 2013, 07:21 AM Apr 2013

Leahy wanted the F-35 jets in VT. He colluded with the Air Force to get it.

There is a ton of opposition to it. In all fairness, Leahy has been supported by most politicians in the state, including Bernie and Governor Shumlin, though on Friday Bernie did say that:

“I take seriously allegations that the scoring process may have been flawed,”

This is a fairly long old fashioned piece of investigative journalism of the kind we don't see much of anymore.

As jets seem bound for Vt., questions of political influence arise

The Air Force says it carefully sorted through 83 military bases around the country before deciding where to assign a coveted prize, the first Air National Guard squadron of F-35s, the next fighter jet in America’s arsenal.

In the end, it picked Vermont for the honor, home state of one of the National Guard’s most powerful political allies in Washington, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy.

But state pride in the award to the “Green Mountain Boys,’’ as the Vermont Air National Guard calls itself, has been clouded by the Air Force’s failure to fully take into account the thunderous noise the F-35s would generate in densely populated communities around its base at Burlington International Airport.

That failure and other flaws in its selection process are raising questions about whether the Air Force deliberately sought to reward a key friend in Congress with a squadron of advanced fighter jets for his state, and whether residents near the airfield might fall victim to Washington’s system of political spoils.

Projected sound levels around the airport are so high with the F-35s that local officials predict several thousand nearby homes would fall within a zone designated “incompatible for residential use,’’ negatively affecting the lives and property values of as many as 7,000 citizens.


<snip>


http://bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/04/13/selection-vermont-guard-base-for-jets-was-based-flawed-data-raising-questions-political-influence/pmhiPtI1BPWxwC3yK1adAL/story.html

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Leahy wanted the F-35 jets in VT. He colluded with the Air Force to get it. (Original Post) cali Apr 2013 OP
Meh. Got to put those overpriced things somewhere. Recursion Apr 2013 #1
try reading the article and then get back to me. cali Apr 2013 #2
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