Anonymously contributed:
HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO OBAMA: NUKE CUT PLAN IS ‘DANGEROUS’
BY: Bill Gertz - February 17, 2012 9:51 am
http://freebeacon.com/house-republicans-to-obama-nuke-cut-plan-is-dangerous/
HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO OBAMA: NUKE CUT PLAN IS ‘DANGEROUS’
BY: Bill Gertz - February 17, 2012 9:51 am
http://freebeacon.com/house-republicans-to-obama-nuke-cut-plan-is-dangerous/
Comments
"Your pointing out that in your opinion management is no better is irrelevant."
When management has lost its integrity and runs an important part of out country it is extreme important and necessary to point this out. Running a successful program requires greatness, integrity and transparency to achieve. Something we do not have in DOE complex as a whole.
Let's get it back.
February 19, 2012 9:42 PM"
You truly disgust me. The real point of the blog has always been about national security. Turning the labs over to corporate control, having congress bash the labs, preventing work from being done, and making working conditions so bad that the best people will never want to work at the labs have all hurt national security and the ability to do our mission.
A corporation by law is not loyal or even concerned about the best interests of the United States but is loyal to the stock holders and profits.
"Did you sign up to serve your country or to collect a paycheck and a pension?"
Again our mission is now to make a profit for a corporation not to serve our country.
February 19, 2012 9:42 PM it is time to wake up and see what is going on. I am also sick your ass-kissing whining, history has
judged sycophants very harshly
The nation's nuclear weapons infrastructure is being successfully destroyed by the far-left, anti-nuke crowd and Obama is helping them in their efforts!
It would be much more helpful to understand how this particular bit of political news has more impact than other times. It appears that LANL "got out in front of their headlights" and made a bad bet based on an uncertain future funding.
No matter the outcome of the debate on the makeup of the strategic nuclear deterrent, the damage of the bad bet is already having an impact.
It looks like LLNL was mostly missed on this round. Next time, it may be NIF that gets whacked.
February 20, 2012 12:14 PM
NIF is not important to national security. What is really scary is the Obama administration's proposing major unilateral reductions in the US nuclear arsenal, claiming that "current" world threats (i.e., terrorism) do not require very many weapons, while simultaneously taking irreversible steps to ensure that when (not if) the country once more needs a respectable, diverse stockpile, it will have lost (essentially permanently) the capability to rebuild it. No infrastructure, no knowledgeable scientists and engineers. And the worst part is, they are getting away with it!!
Mello and his ilk will not be content with closing CMR. Next on their list is PF-4. That will be the end of any US capability to make pits.
February 19, 2012 9:42 PM
Then you would have to fire Brett Knapp, because you just described him to the "tee".....dude!
February 20, 2012 12:53 PM
Another LANS Senior Manager blaming Greg Mello for losing CMMR. I told you guys, LANS sold-out, they stated they could handle it with existing facilities and infrastructure. Hello!!
February 20, 2012 5:21 PM
With the $200M existing shortfall, $300M lost on CMRR, and I hear another $200 loss on the weapons program, that's a total $ 0.70B. You just don't hold a bake-sale to make that kind of money. McMillan has a lot to explain tomorrow at his All-hands. Rest assured that he will count "his plan" on 5-fingers starting with 1. Mommy!
1.
February 20, 2012 5:21 PM
With the $200M existing shortfall, $300M lost on CMRR, and I hear another $200M loss on the weapons program, that's a total $ 0.70B. You just don't hold a bake-sale to make that kind of money. McMillan has a lot to explain tomorrow at his All-hands. Rest assured that he will count "his plan" on 5-fingers starting with 1. Mommy!
February 20, 2012 1:57 PM
Go back and actually read my post. I said CMR, not CMRR. Has anyone ever told you that you have a mature world-view? I hope not!
February 20, 2012 6:13 PM"
Here are some rumors are that there will be some kind of incentive but not much. That will get rid some people but not enough since we already did this one
before not so long ago. Some contractors will be let go as is always the case but a RIF will use the exact same plan as before so it should be faster. Someone said a number like 700 but others have said up to 1500 or even 20% of the work force and it will be across the bored since that avoids legal issues. Does anyone know if this is true. If I remember from the LLNL RIF certain "hot skills" personal where exempt from both the incentive and RIF. Are they going to do that again?
February 20, 2012 7:49 PM
We don't have long to wait. One of those "hot skills" are the Cognizant System Engineers (CSEs), which is a fancy title for Facility Wet Nurses (FWNs). LANS/LLNS values folks baby sitting their facilities, not our Nation's nuclear weapons.
When you add up all the cuts that have recently been announced for LANL it adds up to a huge percentage of the workforce that will soon be laid off. Charlie McMillan has basically destroyed the place with his incompetence!
And for this he makes about $2 million per year? What a joke! It will be interesting to see if he can force himself to be honest with the staff during Tuesday's All-Hands meeting. I doubt it.
And for this he makes about $2 million per year? What a joke! It will be interesting to see if he can force himself to be honest with the staff during Tuesday's All-Hands meeting. I doubt it.
February 20, 2012 9:46 PM
Could this be the end of the Livermore dynasty at LANL? I hope so. By the way, I like LLNL, but man did they send us some crappy leaders. Honesty is not in any Senior LLNS/LANS vocabulary, especially those from Bechtel.
Just as it was sad to see him take sole credit for saving the Lab from last summer's fire, as he did again on the back cover of the LANS annual report that headlined the web page recently.
February 21, 2012 4:38 AM
I almost barfed when I saw this publication. There were 8 by 10 glossies of McMillan and Pattiz for all us to hang at home or in our offices. These guys have a "high opinion" of the themselves. Thank God they didn't put Knapp's picture in it. Here is LANS and the LISC trying to save $200M with Knapp leading efforts to cut down on paper and they send us this thing, what an absolute waste of money!
And WHO did Jessica Quintana work for? Was it Charlie??
Mike wasn't perfect, but he did have the character to hold the office.
We'll see if Director McMillan can be honest with the staff about what's coming at his All-Hands meeting today. A reduction by 1000 employees would equal about 12% of the workforce and would devastate both Los Alamos County and the Espanola Valley.
February 21, 2012 8:46 AM
How can he? He has no idea, nor does anyone else. The President's budget PROPOSAL is just that. Congress hasn't passed a budget in almost three years. What makes anyone think this purely political "budget" that is designed solely to appeal to the liberal Democratic base, will actually have a snowball's chance of passing?
Truth is that Mike really wasn't all that good at the Washington game, he just looks like a Grand Master in comparison to Charlie. The budget is all about knowing how to interact in DC and LANL doesn't have anyone right now that has a clue how to play.
These things haven't been exercised in 20 years.
By analogy, how old does gunpowder need to be before you wonder if the ol' blunderbus still fires? And who would you trust to say so?
Probably not something you want to discover while your daughter is being raped.
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Despite the current vociferous GOP objections to new cuts, it has been Republican presidents over the last 20 years who have authorized the highest reductions to the U.S. nuclear stockpile, the Associated Press reported on Sunday.
"Republican presidents seem to have a thing for 50 percent nuclear reductions," said Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Nuclear Information Project.
President George H.W. Bush approved cutting the number of fielded and stored nuclear weapons from 22,217 to 13,708. His administration also saw the quantity of fielded long-range nuclear weapons reduced from 12,300 to 7,114, Kristensen stated.
In addition, then-President Bush in 1991 also took the unilateral step of removing all deployed ground-launched U.S. nuclear weapons from South Korea and Europe and withdrawing all nuclear warheads from U.S. battleships.
When President George W. Bush ended his tenure as commander in chief in early 2009, there were only 1,968 fielded U.S. nuclear weapons, according to Kristensen. The full arsenal had dropped from 10,526 to 5,273 warheads.
Turner (R-Ohio) on Friday said he was greatly worried by the idea of more severe reductions to the nation's nuclear stockpile.
"Never before has a president done something like this. Yes, presidents since Truman have updated the nation's nuclear war plan. But I cannot find a precedent for a president to tell the national security team, that regardless of the nuclear-weapons modernization programs of China, Russia, Pakistan, North Korea and others, the U.S. should plan to reduce to as low as 300 nuclear weapons," Turner said.
Turner's opinion was echoed by other GOP lawmakers.
"A 300 number would (mean) the Chinese would have more than we have," Senator Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said. "I mean, this is a number where anybody that wanted to could build up to that number and be a peer with the United States. The whole point of nuclear deterrent is to have so much and so great a capability that nobody ever messes with you."
However, if the United States did reduce its launch-ready to arsenal to 300 warheads, it would still have in reserve hundreds and potentially thousands more nuclear weapons than China, which is thought to possess a total stockpile of 300 deployed and reserve warheads (Robert Burns, Associated Press/Arizona Daily Star, Feb. 19).
BTW, bad form to have a release of the EXACT numbers targeted in the RIF in this manner. Makes it look like a political candidate had the information before you gave it to your employees. Rookie mistake.
These two Democratic Senators have not been much help at keeping Northern New Mexico's economy going. They've been AWOL.
With liberal Democrats like this guy and both Jeff Bingamin (D) and Tom Udall (D) plus a far-left President Obama, you can expect Los Alamos to continue to hemorrhage good paying jobs for some time to come.
At least Governor Martinez (R) has been willing to book a ticket to Washington DC and go fight for LANL jobs next week. She needs to be applauded for taking some initiative. The rest of our NM liberal Democratic political establishment is pretty much worthless!
Almost no homes will sell for may years forward after LANS has completed their 10% layoffs of the regular staff, with the very real fear of more layoffs likely to follow.
February 24, 2012 8:44 AM
I'm too impressed with this late minute "antic" by Martinez. It's too late, the pooch got screwed already and she's 5-months in gestation.