Cites Negative Impacts on Hampton Roads, Lack of Critical Warfighting Capabilities
WASHINGTON, DC: Congresswoman Jen Kiggans released the following statement regarding the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25) defense budget:
“The President’s inadequate defense budget does not do our country justice. At a time when Russia, China, and Iran are increasing their aggression, the President has chosen to project weakness on the world stage instead of keeping peace through strength. Our men and women in uniform cannot keep our country safe nor help our allies maintain stability across the globe if they do not have the resources necessary to do so.
“While China increases the size of their navy, President Biden is decreasing ours. That is a slap in the face to those in our sea services who put their lives on the line every day to protect our great nation. Equally as important, a smaller Navy devastates the Hampton Roads industrial base that supports our fleet.
“If President Biden gets his way, we will have fewer ships in our Navy than we had in 2023, our Air Force will be decimated, and our Army will be forced to rely on outdated technology. This budget is negligent at best, ignores the reality of the chaos happening around the world, and poses an inevitable threat to our national security.
“On the House Armed Services Committee, I will work across the aisle to prevent this disastrous budget from becoming a reality. As a former Navy helicopter pilot, Navy wife, and Navy Mom, I will always fight to protect our service members, our warfighting capabilities, and our global deterrence initiatives. I will not stop until Virginia’s Second District has the tools it needs to maintain our nation’s strong defense force and provide for the quality of life our military families deserve.”
Congresswoman Kiggans is specifically concerned about the following provisions of the President’s defense budget and the impact they will have on the Hampton Roads community:
- The shipbuilding budget for FY25 is $32.4 billion, a $400 million cut from the FY24 budget without factoring inflation.
- The shipbuilding budget for FY25 only provides funding to construct six new battle force fleet ships, and only one of these is a Virginia class submarine (which fails to meet the required cadence to support the AUKUS security pact).
- Traditionally, two Virginia class submarines are accounted for in the President’s budget each year.
- This cut will significantly impact Hampton Roads and Newport News Shipbuilding – one of two sites that construct the Virginia class Submarines.
- The FY25 defense budget shifts the aircraft carrier procurement from four-year centers to six-year centers.
- This will significantly slow the procurement of Ford-class aircraft carriers at a time when our Navy is in dire need of increasing our fleet size to compete with China.
- This will directly impact Hampton Roads and Newport News Shipbuilding – the sole builder of Ford-class aircraft carriers.
- Because the FY25 defense budget only allocates construction for six new battle force fleet ships, the Navy fleet size will shrink from 296 to 287 in FY25, which is lower than the fleet size in both FY23 and FY24.
- The FY25 defense budget only provides for $16.2 billion for Navy Aircraft Procurement, a 6.3% decrease from the $17.3 billion allocation in FY24.
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“Keeping peace through strength?”
This woman is bonkers and is stuck back somewhere in the early 1900’s with that idiotic bull****.
Where since the 1950’s, and the Korean debacle, followed by the VEET NAM debacle, followed by the Afghanistnam debacle, followed by the Libya debacle and the Iraqinam debacle and Syrian debacle and now the Red Sea debacle has the US managed to keep any peace?
And strength?
If the “aggressive” Chinese, who seem to scare the living crap right out of the congresswoman, weren’t buying portions of our MASSIVE DEBT, Washington, D.C. would have to be holding bake sales and lawn sales to fund itself, or else crippling us with taxes, beyond the crippling tax of BIDENFLATION we are burdened under now thanks to FISCAL PROFLIGATES like Jen Kiggans in Washington.
And talk about projecting strength, alright, how about a TrendyDigests article titled “$80 MILLION REPAIR BILL AND 2026 RETURN FOR USS CONNECTICUT AFTER SEAMOUNT COLLISION” by Emma Taylor on March 21, 2024 which tells us the tale of what happens when some ******* incompetent US NAVY fast attack submarine driver rams his high-tech boat into a ******* underwater mountain, which I’m sure was a great source of mirth for Russia, China, and Iran and the tenth-century Houthis who are increasing their aggression, to wit:
On October 2nd, 2021, the USS Connecticut, one of the US Navy’s formidable Seawolf-class nuclear fast attack submarines, encountered a disaster that would mark a years-long setback for its operational readiness.
Striking an underwater mountain, the USS Connecticut (SSN-22) sustained severe damage, prompting a costly and time-consuming repair process that is reflective of broader maintenance and readiness challenges facing the Navy.
The incident left the submarine’s bow and sonar dome sheared off, vanished beneath the waves.
It hobbled to Guam for preliminary damage assessment and some repairs before embarking on a slow journey across the Pacific, surfaced all the while, ultimately docking at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, for extensive repairs.
Nearly two years after the collision, drydocking began on July 12, 2023, signaling the start of an arduous repair process that won’t see completion until at least early 2026.
The repair costs, as communicated by a NAVSEA spokesperson, are estimated at a staggering $80 million.
The complexities of repairing the USS Connecticut are manifold.
Not only is the Seawolf class long out of production — limiting access to replacement parts — but the unique construction of the class, which only ever comprised three boats, poses unparalleled challenges.
In the past, the Navy might have leveraged decommissioned submarines for parts, but with such a limited class, this traditional salvage path is closed.
It is a situation that underscores the importance of the Connecticut as a prized asset, despite it having been in operation for 25 years.
Contributing to the intricacy of the submarine’s plight are the concurrent seismic upgrades being undertaken at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.
The Navy has embarked on “construction efforts include drilling holes for the installation of anchors inside the dry dock walls to enhance structural integrity and ensure the safety of the workforce, community, environment, and submarines.”
As of November 2022, nearly 40% of the Navy’s submarine fleet found itself sidelined in maintenance or awaiting such, a condition that has been termed a slow-moving crisis.
end quotes
Maybe instead of building more boats, Ms. Kiggans, a former Navy helicopter pilot, Navy wife, and Navy Mom who will always fight to protect our service members, our warfighting capabilities, and our global deterrence initiatives, should invest some time and money in a fight to teach these Navy people how to drive the boats they have in the first place.
WHAT A JOKE THIS ALL IS!
The sea mount was uncharted.
As to the Russians and Chinese laughing at us, I’d suggest perusing https://www.rferl.org/a/major-russian-submarine-accidents-since-2000/30033592.html; https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/chinese-nuclear-submarine-suffers-catastrophic-failure-what-we-know-4451948.
My guess is the PLAN record is no better than the Societs/Russians. The PLAN is just better at keeping its submarine mishaps out of open source material.
Submarine operations, by definition, are hazardous. But the U.S. Navy’s submarine safety record, especially given its operational requirements, is extraordinary.
Editor’s Note: Agreed, but we are not laughing at the Russian submarine fleet either. The Oscar II and Sev are no joke.
Craig C Felker, thank you so very much for stepping in here as you did with that important background factoid about the mountain the U.S. NAVY HIGH TECH FAST ATTACK SUBMARINE with state-of-the-art real-time sonar sea floor mapping, which technology has been around since the 1020’s, ran into, a fact first made known when the mishap was first reported, as if that were somehow a valid excuse for a high tech boat with sonar that is supposed to see undersea mountains, since the Navy knows the sea floor quite well and they know it isn’t flat, actually hitting such a mountain, for those who were not aware of that apparent factoid, which is really quite immaterial, given that a FAST ATTACK SUBMARINE, unlike a BOOMER, is an aggressive predator that has only one purpose in life and that is to chase down and kill enemy submarines, and probably other stuff as well, if they are targets of opportunity, and those enemy submarines are going to be using the complex terrain of the sea floor to hide in, and attack from, which the Navy has known about for a long time, which takes us to an article on the U.S. Naval Institute website titled “Lurking in the Deep-Sea Terrain” by Robert D. Ballard, a world-recognized undersea explorer, author, and President of the Institute for Exploration, a Division of Sea Research Foundation, Inc., based in Mystic, Connecticut, from back in May 1998, to give you an idea of how long this information has been public knowledge, from their Proceedings Volume 124/5/1,143, to wit:
Ironically, the U.S. Navy keeps the largest and most accurate database in the world concerning the complexities of this deep-sea environment.
Its reason for collecting such detailed topographical data, however, was not to appreciate its value in future naval warfare planning.
The Navy collected it to support the U.S. ballistic-missile submarine program during the Cold War.
In the 1960s, about the time oceanographers were becoming aware of the mountain ranges lying beneath the sea, the Navy’s submarine program began mapping large areas of the ocean, where ballistic-missile submarines were being deployed.
Using a hull-mounted sonar system called the Harris array, World War II-era Liberty ships began criss-crossing the northern hemisphere, carefully mapping vast regions of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
During the waning years of the Cold War, the upper echelons of the Navy actually did take an interest in the strategic and tactical importance that deep-sea environments might have on future naval warfare planning.
In 1982, Secretary of the Navy John F. Lehman Jr. actively sought to learn more about the deep-sea environment, delivering a speech in which he advocated that the “Navy should take the high ground” beneath the sea.
He even made a dive in the submersible Alvin (DSV-2) and invited me to deliver a speech at the Navy’s International Seapower Symposium at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
In attendance that year was the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Thomas Hayward.
end quote
Bottom line, Craig C Felker, and we have you to thank for pointing this out to us, the sea floor is known by the Navy to not be flat, so it can’t have its fast attack boats driving around down there totally blind, as if it were flat, and therefore, it has equipped them with the ability to see where they are going, otherwise, a savvy Russian sub drive would run them into mountains all the time.
So, how did it hit an uncharted mountain when probably there are hundreds of such where these boats operate?
And consider, Craig C Felker, the case of those two HIGH TECH AEGIS CLASS DESTROYERS bristling with hi-tech radar that both ran into other boats that were five or more times their size, which you would think would show up at least as a dot on a NAVY HI-TECH RADAR.
In what brags itself up to be the BEST NAVY IN THE WORLD, how does amateur-hour **** like that happen?
OH WHOOPSIE DOODLE, WE JUST MSMASHED INTO A GREAT BIG BOAT, MY BAD!
And the reason everybody who isn’t the WORLD’S BEST NAVY is laughing at us, is precisely because of the bragging, which is hollow.
People aren’t afraid of clowns and ****-ups, Craig C Felker.
That’s something JINGOS and SABER WAVERS and DRUM THUMPERS like Jen Kiggans, who was born made to wave the flag, she’s red, white and blue, so when the band plays “Hail to the chief,” she points the cannon at everybody in the world whose asses she wants kicked, should study on.
You tell somebody you’re going to kick their ass, best the deed be already done when the last word in the sentence is coming out of your mouth, or it isn’t going to get done, as DEMOCRAT Harry Truman found out in Korea, and DEMOCRAT Lyndon Baines Johnson found out in Viet Nam and DEMOCRAT Joe Biden found out in Afghanistnam, Syria, and Iraqinam, and now, the Red Sea, where the Houthis are using Joe’s Navy for target practice, and Joe is helpless to stop them.
At a time when China is increasing its aggression, Craig C Felker?
Really?
As a disabled veteran with mobility issues, I am entitled to what are called mobility aids through the VA, those being such items as hand rails.
And when I got my order of mobility aids from the VA delivered, Craig C Felker, where do you think they came from?
How about MADE IN CHINA?
Yes, Craig C Felker, thanks to the Chinese, I have my mobility aids.
So what is this Chinese aggression Jen Kiggans is on about?
Have you a clue?
As to who is the real aggressor here, Craig C Felker, I would say it is Washington, D.C. and the people down there like Jen Kiggans who see everybody not like them as a threat to be dealt with, with a heavy hand, as we see in this excerpt from p.654 of “The Coldest Winter” by David Halberstam:
Sometimes too, as he (LBJ) came close to the final decision on whether to send combat troops to Vietnam, Johnson’s racism showed in the way he spoke of the Vietnamese as being like Mexicans, the kind of lesser people you had to show some strength to before they got the message and gave you the respect you deserved.
The Vietnamese, he would say, were not going to push Lyndon Johnson around, because he knew something about people like this, because back home he had dealt with people just like them, the Mexicans.
Now, Mexicans were alright if you let them know who was boss, but “if you didn’t watch they’ll come right into your yard and take it over if you let them.”
“And the next day they’ll be right there on your porch, barefoot and weighing one hundred and thirty pounds, and they’ll take that too.”
“But if you say to ’em right at the start, ‘Hold on, just wait a minute,’ they’ll know they were dealing with someone who’ll stand up.”
“And after that you can get along fine.”
end quotes
As to the type of GUNBOAT GANGSTERISM war hawk Jen Kiggans is advocating for, the PAX AMERICANA, where everybody in the world not an American like Jen Kiggans must abase themselves and grovel to Americans like Jen Kiggans, let me leave you with this quote from U.S. Marine Major General and twice Medal of Honor recipient Smedley D. Butler from “War is a Racket” to see what Jen Kiggans wants to restore with her “keeping peace through strength” bull****, to wit:
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.”
“In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
“I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914.”
“I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.”
“I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.”
“I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912.”
“I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916.”
“I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903.”
“In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.”
“Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints.”
“The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts.”
“I operated on three continents.”
end quotes
As to that FAST ATTACK NAVY SUBMARINE that plowed into an underwater mountain, let me leave you with this sentence from the TrendyDigests article titled “$80 MILLION REPAIR BILL AND 2026 RETURN FOR USS CONNECTICUT AFTER SEAMOUNT COLLISION” by Emma Taylor on March 21, 2024, to wit:
The incident left the submarine’s bow and sonar dome sheared off, vanished beneath the waves.
end quote
Sonar dome?
Hmmmmmmm.
Now why would the Navy bother putting a sonar dome on a FAST ATTACK SUBMARINE?
So it can see underwater mountains the Navy knows are there so it don’t ram into them?
A question for the hour!
How National Lampoon would have treated this submarine incident, or Monty Python’s Flying Circus, for that matter:
WHOOOOOOOOOOM!
(cue sounds of US Navy FAST ATTACK SUBMARINE attacking an underwater mountain head-on real fast)
“Oh goodness gracious!”
“Oh gracious me!”
“I’ve pranged the boat!”
“I think I might be in trouble!”
“Does anyone know what that mountain is doing here?”
“I thought it was supposed to be a flat as a pancake down here!”
“That’s what I remember Joe Biden the Commander-in-Chief telling me when he commissioned me, and I’m not going to argue with the chain of command that knows more than I do about these things!”
“So how then do we explain this mountain that’s not supposed to be here and the missing parts off the submarine?”
“Who wants to ruin his career by telling the commander-in-chief he is dead wrong about the bottom of the ocean being flat as a pancake, so all you had to do as an AGGRESSIVE FAST ATTACK submarine commander on the tail of a COMMIE B**TARD is t0 set it on cruise control, which I what I did, and then kick back and let the computer do the rest, which is how we hit this mountain!”
Alien Privilege:
Homeless foreign colonists get taxpayer-funded free stuff.
Homeless U.S. citizens get nothing.
And what does AMERICAN AGGRESSION look like in real life?
Here it is right here:
Reuters
“US urges allies to bar firms from servicing key chipmaking tools for China”
By Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld
March 27, 2024
WASHINGTON, March 27 (Reuters) – The United States is asking allies to stop domestic companies from servicing certain chipmaking tools for Chinese customers, a U.S. commerce department official said on Wednesday, as it ramps up efforts to hobble China’s chipmaking capabilities.
end quote
Make no mistake about it, people, an attack on another country’s economy, such as the weak United States is trying to do to China, because it can’t compete, is very6 much an act of war.
So it is not China that is an aggressor here, it is not surprisingly Washington, D.C.
Economic warfare or economic war is an economic strategy utilized by belligerent nations like Washington, D,C, with the goal of weakening the economy of other states like China.
“Why can’t we all just get along?”
Rodney King
What would that leave for the Marines to do then?
Survive