Flying White Elephant Succeeds in Knocking out a Tank

From Reuters, October 31, 2013:
 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jet dropped a 500-pound bomb this week, hitting a tank at Edwards Air Force Base in California and marking the first time the new warplane has fired a laser-guided weapon, the Pentagon said Wednesday.  

Full text of article.

Each F-35 costs between $153 million and $199 million, depending on the model--that's between one hundred fifty three and one hundred ninety-nine million dollars.  That's for ONE of them.   And it managed to drop a 500-lb bomb to knock out a tank.  And they've already rolled out 63 of them.  (You do the math.)  And the whole fleet has been grounded twice so far in 2013. And it only has one engine, as opposed to a twin-engine configuration, which provides a backup in case of an engine failure.
 
And...well...Lots more here.

Here, friends, are your taxpayer dollars [and the $1.8 trillion the U.S. Government has borrowed from the Chinese] at work, hundreds of billions of dollars being squandered on the most expensive white elephant in the entire history of humanity.

Just in case you ever wondered why the Republicans are trying so desperately to slash food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid and aid to education and do defund health care for all Americans, now you know where the money is really going.

Ain't America great?

For more about the Flying White Elephant see the Jagoriade post from March 8, 2013.

Flash! Nine Justices on Supreme Court Not Constitutional!

According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to regulate the structure, administration and jurisdiction of the federal courts.  These powers are limited by precepts of due process, equal protection and separation of powers

Having nine justices on the Supreme Court is not in the Constitution, but a simple custom, determined by Congressional vote.  The Constitution allows Congress to change the number of Supreme Court justices if it so deems.  The Judiciary Act of 1789 provided for a six-member Supreme Court with one Chief Justice and five Associate Justices. 

Since the act of 1789, there have been eight more changes to the number of Supreme Court justices, which have varied from a low of five to a high of ten. 

I wonder how many Americans know that!

Consequently, if President Obama wanted to name one or two more justices so that the right-wing activist Gang of Five [Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas]--AKA The Impeachables--could be outvoted or at least stymied, who could stop him, as long as he had enough votes in the Congress? 

Certainly it would be entirely constitutional to change the number of justices on the Supreme Court. It's already been done eight times!