Base Closure Threat Blackmailing Senator Nelson into Health Care Vote?

E=4B Command Post

The Obama Administration has truly brought “Chicago politics” to the Potomac.

We knew Obama and his cronies in congress are not afraid to bribe our representatives to get their way;  Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) got a $300 million bribe that she’s proud of in exchange for her cloture vote for the unconstitutional government health care proposal.

We also knew the Obama administration was not afraid to threaten or blackmail congress into passing the un-constitutional, un-American cap and trade global warming tax; the EPA’s decision to declare a substance human beings exhale as a “pollutant” illustrates this.

Now it would seem the socialists in congress are getting even more personal–and aren’t going to let petty things like national defense get in the way of their glorious plans for a socialist health care system.

The Weekly Standard says a Senate aide has stated White House has threatened to put Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska on the next BRAC list.

According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn’t fall into line.

Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a “naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson’s vote.” They are “threatening to close a base vital to national security for what?” asked the Senate staffer.

I was stationed at Offutt way back at the beginning of my Air Force career. Offutt was home to Headquarters, Strategic Air Command (SAC) back then, the major command responsible for two of the three legs of America’s nuclear triad (bombers and missiles). During the post-Gulf War realignment in 1991-1992, SAC was retired and the bombers went under the new Tactical Air Command (TAC) in Langley, but Offutt remained home to Strategic Command in charge of military space operations and missiles.

When I was there, Offutt was home to the Looking Glass airborne command post that I believe is still in operation.  During the Cold War, those airborne command post planes flew 24/7/365 (I used to watch them launch on my way to work on swing shifts and mid shifts) to have airborne command and control in case Offutt was wiped off the map in a surprise nuke attack.

I believe Offutt is also still home to the National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP E-4) 747 aircraft which frequently goes with the president to provide command and control support. I knew several of the security guys who used to fly on NEACP. We used to have to stop traffic on a road that passed immediately behind one end of the runway when those huge birds launched; it would back up over the runway overrun, then rev up because it needed all the runway it could get to launch, and the backwash from the engines could have blown a car off the road.

I’m sure Offutt isn’t what it used to be after the post-Cold War drawdown, but from everything I can see, it remains a vital component of our national defense.

How shameful that this White House would use a key element of national defense like a petty bargaining chip to blackmail a senator into voting for something the U.S. Constitution simply does not allow.

UPDATE: For an update on this story, click here.

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