Making a Killing
After Helmets Were Found Faulty - DoD Awards Co Another $74 Million Contract
And "the company can assert sovereign immunity in any private lawsuits brought by soldiers."
J Street's Te-Ping Chen:
Last December, after secret tapes revealed the North Dakota Sioux Manufacturing Company charged with producing helmets for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan had knowingly delivered some 2.2 million helmets made with substandard weave, the Defense Department wasn't fazed by the controversy. Rather, 12 days before the pending Justice Department lawsuit was settled (with a $2-million slap on the wrist), the DOD issued another contract to the Sioux Manufacturing Company worth up to $74 million.
VoteVets.org and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington launched a campaign for Congressional inquiry into the contract ... (read on)
Supporting the troops the GOP way.
IMPEACH
CHENEY
FIRST!!!
.
Just what this country needs....more PATRIOTISM.
The one true American god - $
It's like they've purposely been supplied with nothing but faulty equipment to keep profits up for GOP cronies. Profits (GOP reasoning) are more important than anything else, even lives.
It's high time that Attorney General Mukasey launch a grand jury investigation into this matter. Tee Hee Hee. Just kidding.
They've turned off their server too. I love to send these people letters, not just bitch about it here. Let them know, we know.
IMPORTANT MESSEGE TO THE CROOKS AND LIARS CREW - WE NEED YOUR HELP, ALL BLOGSPOT BLOGS HAVE BEEN DISABLED BY BLOGGER/GOOGLE- SO IF YOU TYPE THEM IN IT SAYS "SERVER ERROR", PLEASE IF YOU HAVE ANYONE TO CONTACT ALL OF US WOULD BE GRATEFUL....THIS IS ENIGMA4EVER FROM WATERGATE SUMMER- THIS IS ALSO EFFECTING BIG WONDERFUL BLOGS LIKE SKIPPY.....ANYTHING YOU CAN DO TO HELP THAT WOULD BE GREAT.....THANK YOU. YOU CAN EMAIL ME AT enigma4ever@earthlink.net, thanks
Who really cares about our troops?
Why are families and ordinary American's having to provide for our troops when it's the governments job (and then the government bills them for equipment distroyed or left in the field) asswipe
donate here if you can
http://www.operation-helmet.org/
enigma4ever @ 7:
This explains why I can't get into my blog
Breaking the grip the Arms Merchants have on our Nation is JOB #1.
It's bad enough the blood & treasure that's already been wasted.
The scary part is the FUTURE CONTRACTS awarded by this CRIMINAL ADMINISTRATION.
$35 BILLION awarded today for aerial refueling tankers.
Then there's the KILLER ROBOTS.
And Missile Defense Systems for East Europe - deploying an (at best) unproven technology against an as yet non-existent threat.
And on and on and on ..
More War Toys do NOT make us more secure.
ABOUT THE BLOGSPOT MESS- IT IS ALL BLOGSPOT BLOGS AND ALSO SHAKES SISTER AND BLUE GAL AND SKIPPY.....WE NEED HELP AND SOME OF THE BIGGER BLOGS TO LET BLOGGER KNOW THAT WE ARE ALL DOWN- WE HAVE NO ACCESS....THANKS...enigma4ever@earthlink.net
MountainMan23 @ 10:
They do this because they know 90% of Americans aren't going to suit up and go fight for war rackets somewhere.
why should congress bother investigating this?
they are much too busy trying to hang a perjury charge on clemens, and investigating tape gate
friggin idiots, every one
Long,long ago when that 'invasion' happened -I said ' The Thugs will create a Fuck Up where "We' will need to stay and continue the occupation to secure the oil. nothing has changed my opinion from the very day 'WE' invaded. The criminal acts continue and Congress-YOUR elected representatives continue the Crime.
A top ranking Fox in the Bush administration has just announced that he will be conducting a full investigation into the grizzly deaths of 5,000 American chickens.
sexy link
Edwin @ 1:
Yes, thanks for supporting the troops BU$H
Mi$$ion A¢¢ompli$hed
http://www.siouxmanufacturing.com/
Sioux, Blackwater, AM General, Raytheon... the list of war profiteering contractors is too voluminous.
We are a war driven, material mad, capitalist society and U.S. manufacturers must cut costs to survive even at the expense of our children's lives.
Business is tough and people die but it puts bread on the table.
Catch 22.
To the C&L crew...I don't know if you yelled at Blogger/Blogspot?Google for us...but if you did THANK YOU.....( that was an hour and half of sheer hell)....thank you....
Sioux Manufacturing Corporation
"Through innovation and conformance to requirements, we are committed to being the most competitive producer of defect free products."
Look people, get A FREAKIN GRIP !!! Geez, a business is just trying to make a few bucks, made a little error in the first batch of 2.2 million little helmets, and everyone wants to shut them down. Good gracious, relax. Besides, we have far more pressing matters to take care of than some tiny defense contract. Oh, you don't think so?
Well then, how about the extremely crucial investigation by the Congress into whether Roger Clemens actually took steriods or not? Or whether he was at the party where his wife and Jose Canseco compared boob-jobs? See what I mean? And then there's the critical decision by Arlen "Magic Bullet Theory" Specter, trying to bring those UnPatriots to justice for illegally videotaping signals. Which is kinda ironic when you think about it.....coz,.....didn't we just hear how important capturing signals from the enemy is so important that we shouldn't have to bother with the constitution?
But I digress.
Leave the poor defense contract alone and let them have a second chance. It's not like we haven't all enjoyed tossing billions upon billions of our tax dollars into the black hole these past 7 years while doing nothing about it. I mean, shouldn't we have done something about this AS A PEOPLE when we started hearing the stories about the lack of body armor or significant armor for the humvees and other trucks/vehicles in-theatre? Or when Halliburton got the no-bid contract? I mean, really, really do something like......oh, I don't know......NOT go to work in protest.......collectively promise OUR government we won't pay taxes until the troops come home.....you know, risky stuff like that.
No...what we did AS A PEOPLE is put our tails between our legs (most people AND THE MEDIA) and kept looking out for numero uno, while pretending not to know anything was going wrong and just look forward to the next Oprah show, NFL football matchup, American Idol contest, the next release of a Harry Potter move or WWF Ultimate Cage Match part 3,473.
And we're worried NOW about a deficiency in the defense contracts being let?
enigma4ever @ 11:
Is this what you are referring to? Here ia my blog.
http://myfightfordemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-declaration-of-indep...
these are the same helmets the DOD was chasing down injured solders and charging them for losing them when they were injured?
Shame on U.S. @ 17:
What a way to use our Divine Gifts huh? A murderous march to no where.
RMac-
You forgot "American IDLE"!
Bush & Co don't care if our troops are killed, as long as they get the kickbacks from the contracts they give out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Number of Operations Iraq Freedom and Enduring Freedom casualties
as confirmed by U.S. Central Command: 4437
The Iraqi freedom fighters have no helmets at all.
What a bunch of fucking American pussies!
fuck bush, i hope the next time he wipes, his fingers go thru the paper.
Our idiot leaders probably included a few smart remarks such as "Make sure the helmets can withstand arrows and tomahawks". The company took it as an insult, as they should, and delivered... case closed.
I already wrote about these fucking clowns a couple of weeks ago when the NY Times did an expose on them. They shorted the soldiers on the Kevlar weave (it's supposed to be 35x35) and made up for the shortfall in weight by sticking more glue in the helmets, which explains why they were unaccountably short on glue and had 30,000 extra pounds of Kevlar.
but the helmets were softer to absorb the impact from rattling arround in the hmmvs after the IEDs went off.
The original helmets were designed to stop bullets, not absorb the impact of a crash like the michs being fielded today...
(thats a made up SWAG of an excuse, but it should keep this Souix nation affiliated factory feeding from the government trough along with the truly heinieus exploiters. always the subtle shades of gray...)
A perfect example of the grip the Arms Merchants have on Our Nation.
Congress in turmoil over Air Force tanker decision
MountainMan23 @ 31:
How hilarious. In the local news, only Lockheed was mentioned as another contender. Boeing can't even deliver the orders it HAS on deck right now in a timely manner. The whores for Boeing are at it again. Lovely. I got my wish, though. :D
Dont serve your masters and we would not have this problem right now.
Who is on their Board of Directors? Who stands to make a profit from this????
Is there any reason that people affected, soldiers of their families, can't sue? Maybe because it has to do withe military? It seems to me that if the family sues, it is a private citizen suing a private company?
Any lawyers out there?
Also, it seems to me it was an actual crime. prosecuting these evil m*therf*cers should put this on their list of things to do.
And you know, with obama the president and probably a majority in both chambers, they may grow some balls.
Just another example of the results of unfettered capitolism. Letting people make as much as they possibly can without any consequenses for the quality of the product just isn't smart. Actually it's about as stupid as you can get.
Slappy G @ 15:
I wondered about the awfully bad PR picture leaked to the MSM of the Chimp carrying the King's Sword,
this seemed to be a very bad photo to be allowed to circulate to the world,
showed up who was who's beeach, esp in the more subtle non American MSM and European / Arabic world.
Made me wonder if somebody in the Chimp's entourage hadnt chuckled and cleared it for release on purpose.
Then you have that official PR ! picture of Chimpy sat on that throne in Africa pinning a royal star onto his chest,
in breach of US rules (for elected public officials) on accepting foreign titles.
What a tragedy... people who went to Iraq to kill, got killed.... life isn't fair...
Besides, a room of happy shareholders outweighs a few dead nobodies. The "health" of the economy reigns supreme.
This is what you get when you try to run two wars and pretend it doesn't affect the nation.....
GRIND THE MEAT!
They are just boys and girls out there killing civilans who are defending their homes against an illegal invasion of their country.
I know I would be killing the invaders too. With a shovel if needed, but since you put them there to do that warcrime in your name the least you could do is actually protect them.
But you guys really don't care? Just killl them as long as you get the money back home eh?
Sick.
As a former Army guy I can attest to this first hand. The military has known these helmets were faulty for years.
Back in the day we posted one up for a joke at target practice and shot a 5.56 round directly through it.
Some people are getting rich off this stuff here. Plain and simple.
This is quite outrageous, esp. that we can manufacture well priced composite tennis rackets of fantastic strength and dynamic characteristics..
Some years ago I did lead an effort commissioning the largest ever composite tanks (part of a sophisticated environmental control process), that had to be custom made, due to their huge size (dia larger than 12 ft). I was also involved w/ the composite helmets procured for the Operation Desert Storm, that had a record of failure, therefore were rejected later by the UN for the peacekeeping.
The 'weave' being discussed here is the 'netting' skeleton filled with chemical composite/ epoxy mix in liquid form, which harden to become one solid material in some shape - a helmet here. It is as reinforcing steel into/around which cement mix is poured to make the reinforced concrete structure, much stronger than any of the elements separately.
The more 'weave' per square inch/centimeter, the stronger the material/composite, the bigger force it can take without destruction. With lesser 'weave', the composite product will be breaking/crumbling/ chipping, powdered, like an old clay brick, under lower force/ impact. The proportion of 'weave' and the 'filler', and HOW the process is performed is of an utmost importance to achieve required characteristics.
The Operation Desert Storm composite helmets were provided by the US military to the allied forces as well, including the military 'observers', such as German Bundeswehr, which was never officially listed anywhere as participating - although Bundeswehr has become more and more engaged in international operations there were/are strict limits in their international involvement.
Around mid-90-ties, while procuring composite helmets (cheaper than metal, supposedly better?? overall, w/more vendors to choose from) for the UN peacekeeping, I was provided w/Desert Storm Bundeswehr reports of their observers killed and wounded due to substandard quality / NON-perfomance/ of the US provided helmets. In fact my UN-German colleague's friend was killed in Kuwait w/a shrapnel hitting his helmet, and splitting it (and his head..), 'like butter' ..
We did issue very precise UN bid, then contracts, with very precise specification requirements, and, strict QA/ auditing procedures/ milestones, making the continuation of the contract conditional upon continuous meeting the requirements along the way.
It IS a NO brainer !! even if the above contracts were issued as 'no bid' (ie. w/price shenanigans), the tech SPECIFICATION requirements, the QA/auditing procedures must be met by the offer !!
So, the bottom line question is VERY SIMPLE: WHAT was the TECH-SPEC, and WHO exactly signed off on the contract, certifying the tech requirements are met, and QA audits are INCLUDED ?? QA in these circumstances MUST include the PERFORMANCE TESTING, and here it would also be the DESTRUCTIVE TESTING. Just as simple !!
The issue of the helmet 'liners' mentioned up the thread again is scandalous - the tech-spec contract MUST comply with, must include overall PERFORMANCE, including the info after how many 'on-offs' the liner (or, strap, any component) has to be replaced !! In such a spec/ report of conformance, the issue of uncomfortable FIT (NO FIT) MUST be addressed ! As a minimum !!
IMBECYLS = CRIMINALS GALORE !!!
Well folks, that is the problem isn't it? I does not matter as to what the tech-specs are, or how many good soldiers have to die. It's all for the love of a little green piece of paper no one can take with them when they die. Pretty sad isn't it?
So did any of you people consider putting in a bid for the contract and supplying a proper helmet for our troops?
Just wondering.
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