Posted on 08/31/2015 6:25:18 PM PDT by Nachum
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus wants to torpedo all the talk about a shrinking U.S. battle fleet.
Republican presidential candidates are pushing a “narrative,” Mabus said, that President Barack Obama has weakened the military and, in particular, the Navy, at a time of growing demands on American power around the world. But in an interview with POLITICO, Mabus fired a salvo at critics he said don’t know what they’re talking about.
“I have this funny thing about facts,” he laughed in his office on the Pentagon’s E-Ring, surrounded by paintings of classic warships. “I like to get facts into the equation.”
Numbers aren’t the only way to measure seapower, Mabus said — a point Obama famously made to Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential debate. But even a simple count of the number of ships in service today — and, Mabus stressed, under contract — reveals that the Navy is growing, not shrinking.
The Navy has ordered some 70 ships since Mabus came to Washington in 2009, which, accounting for retirements of ships in the coming years, puts the fleet on track to grow to more than 300 and, if Congress cooperates, potentially far beyond that.
If all goes as hoped, the Navy will stabilize at a fleet of 308, Mabus said: “That’s the number of ships we need to do every mission we’ve got.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
At least he’s firing back at someone.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
Mabus named a ship after John Murtha.
Yeah, but what’s Obama putting on those ships? Fags, women, transgenders, etc. All make for a really strong military force, right Mabus?
Mabus, eh? Didn’t Nostradamus have something to say about this guy? Just sayin’
Active Duty ping.
Speaking of "facts"...
Shame on you, admiral.
Yup...having all those ships will do a world of good with nobody to man the guns
“....to do every mission we’ve got”
Yes, you useless shill!
That’s part of the problem!
Your America hating boss has cut your mission objectives in half!
If you like facts, Mabus, here’s one for you: you’re reporting to a crypto-commie/muzzie.
Of course, because otherwise he’ll need to ‘retire’ or ‘step down’ or there will be a scandal and he’ll need to go to court.
This guy probably is listed on the Ashley Madison leak!
Next generation destroyer (Zumwalt class) — we were going to build 32 of them. We cancelled 29 of them.
I don’t have a lot of current info on the Navy, but I have some first hand knowledge that the Army and the Air Force have been reduced. Note that we once had a two-war strategy but Obama explicitly rejected that and has pushed for the capability to fight one war (as long as its not a big one).
Norfolk 12/20/2012.
This month, a carrier strike group that is headed to the Pacific for a six-week multinational naval exercise off the coast of Hawaii, will have its non-nuclear powered escort vessels, which include a destroyer and a tanker, use a newly formulated 50-50 mixture of standard [diesel] fuel, and a cocktail of seeds, algae and chicken fat, according to a July 2, 2012 FOXNews article.
A Navy official stated that operating the so-called “Great Green Fleet” on this blend of alternative and conventional fuel is part of Navy Secretary Ray Mabus’ plan to have half the Navy fleet on alternative fuel by 2020.
Thanks for bringing that up. I knew that the name MABUS was familiar but couldn't place what context I heard it in.
FLASHBACK:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2537269/posts
Obama’s spill recovery chief will be part-time (Navy Secretary Ray Mabus)
AP ^ | June 18, 2010 | MATT APUZZO and EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
(no link)
Former governor finds new life in politics — Secretary of the Navy Mabus was written off after losing governorship of Mississippi
Commercial Appeal, The (Memphis, TN) - October 12, 2009
Author/Byline: Emily Wagster Pettus
Plenty of people wrote off Ray Mabus in 1991 when he lost his bid for a second term as Mississippi governor. The Democrat was only 43 at the time - pretty young for a has-been.
Turns out, it was a mistake for critics to declare his career over.
Mabus, who turned 61 on Sunday, has enjoyed a second and third turn on the political stage in appointed jobs that have taken him far beyond the borders of Mississippi.
The Ackerman native and Harvard law graduate was U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1994-96 under then-President Bill Clinton, whose time as governor of Arkansas overlapped with Mabus’ as governor of Mississippi.
Now, Mabus is secretary of the Navy, a post to which he was appointed by President Barack Obama in March and confirmed with bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate in May. Mabus was an early supporter of Obama during the 2008 presidential race.
Mabus has made several appearances the past several weeks to talk about his new job and to inspect Navy vessels being built at shipyards in Connecticut, Virginia and Mississippi.
On Friday, Mabus appeared at Jackson State University to announce that the Navy will name a supply ship for Medgar Evers, the Mississippi NAACP leader assassinated in Jackson in 1963.
Before going to Mississippi last week, Mabus was in New York to appear on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” a late-night satirical news program on cable’s Comedy Central. No doubt that Mabus - who has one daughter in college, another in high school and a stepdaughter in elementary school - earned some Cool Dad points with his easygoing demeanor and flub-free responses to a host whose quick wit sometimes leaves guests bumfuzzled.
As Navy secretary, Mabus oversees sailors and Marines. Stewart asked him which group is stronger.
“I love all my children equally,” Mabus said. “You know, you don’t go out of your way to make either Marines or sailors, which include SEALS, angry.”
Mabus praised service members as well trained, highly skilled and “incredibly patriotic.”
Stewart agreed.
“They’re tremendous ambassadors,” Stewart said. “But I remember my grandfather telling me stories about the Navy. They used to greet each other. The standard, I guess, Navy greeting - ‘How’s the syphilis?’”
Mabus laughed but, wisely, did not respond.
Mabus served in the Navy from 1970-72 as a surface warfare officer on the Newport, R.I.-based USS Little Rock. Before then, he was in naval ROTC as an undergraduate at the University of Mississippi.
He first entered Mississippi politics in the early 1980s as a staff member for then-Gov. William Winter. Young and brash, Mabus was elected state auditor in November 1983. During four years on the job, he rooted out corruption in county government - making enemies among the courthouse crowd but grabbing headlines that helped propel him to the Governor’s Mansion in the 1987 election.
As governor, Mabus sought to follow up Winter’s biggest legislative success, the Education Reform Act of 1982, which required public school districts to offer kindergarten. Mabus’ BEST - Better Education for Success Tomorrow - was passed by the Legislature but never funded.
As the economy tanked and the state budget struggled, Mabus lost the 1991 governor’s race to Republican Kirk Fordice, a blunt-spoken Vicksburg contractor who was little known before the campaign.
(snip)
Index terms: profile age msRecord: 12B4ED41906F17A0
” 50-50 mixture of standard [diesel] fuel, and a cocktail of seeds, algae and chicken fat”
Is that the stuff that costs $200/gal?
Mabus, firing blanks since he got the job.
The only ship fitting of this ahole is a car “ferry”.
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