Virginia's Largest Employers Urge Passage of LGBT Non-Discrimination Bills

For years Virginia Republicans claimed they were the "pro-business" party yet for decades made Virginia businesses less competitive in their ability to recruit top talent and employees by pandering to anti-gay hate groups like The Family Foundation and "Christian" extremists.  Now, with the change of control of the Virginia General Assembly to the Democrats, LGBT appear poised to gain long over due non-discrimination protections.  In a recent letter, 30 of Virginia's largest employers (locally, that includes Newport News Shipbuilding) have urged passage of the Virginia Values Act that would end anti-LGBT discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodation and health care access.  The letter can be found here.  Virginia Business Magazine looks at the development.  Here area article excerpts:

More than 30 Virginia employers — including Altria Group Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Capital One Financial Corp. and Dominion Energy — on Monday sent a letter to Virginia lawmakers asking for comprehensive lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) nondiscrimination protections.

The letter addressed to House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, D-Fairfax, and Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Falls Church, states that employees, their families and customers deserve equal opportunities at work and in daily life.

“Because many LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ workers prefer to live and work in communities with nondiscrimination protections, such a law will give Virginia’s employers tangible advantages in recruitment and retention,” reads the letter released by the Virginia Values Coalition, a statewide group pushing for passage of the Virginia Values Act, which would prohibit LGBTQ discrimination in Virginia.

“Business leaders know that a welcoming Virginia is crucial to their economic competitiveness,” said Kasey Suffredini, Freedom for All Americans CEO and national campaign director. “Nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ Virginians and visitors will make it easier for businesses to recruit talented workers, to expand investments in the state, and to attract tourism business.” The crossover companies (companies that both signed the letter and were recognized as a best place to work for LGBTQ equality) included Altria, Capital One, Dominion Energy, Hilton and Nestlé USA Inc. “Virginians and businesses agree — it is past time for LGBTQ people in the commonwealth to have comprehensive nondiscrimination protections,” HRC President Alphonso David said in a statement. “These protections are good for business, good for tourism, good for the economy, and most importantly, vital for the 250,000+ LGBTQ adults living in Virginia. It’s heartening to see so many Virginia businesses publicly support these protections and push for equality for all.”

Nation's Larges Naval Shipbuilder Scores High on LGBTQ Polices

As the crow flies, I live perhaps 5 or 6 miles from Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia's largest employer and the builder of America's nuclear powered aircraft carrier fleet and many of the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarines.   For the last several years the company has been a champion of LGBT rights locally and a presenting sponsor for the HR Pride event each summer.  The Christofascists, of course, must be having conniption fits.  Unlike Virginia Republicans, Newport News Shipbuilding when your policies are welcoming to all and discrimination is banned, you can hire the best and the brightest employees.  Who they love really should play no role whatsoever in employment decisions.  Moreover, such policies make a region and/or state attractive to other progressive, forward looking businesses.  A piece in U.S. News & World Reports looks at the company's LGBT friendly polices.  Here are highlights:

One of the nation's leading gay rights groups is praising the LGBTQ-friendly policies of the nation's largest military shipbuilder.

The Daily Press in Newport News reported Friday that Huntington Ingalls Industries received a 100 rating on a corporate survey from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

The survey evaluated policies that include domestic partner benefits and transgender-inclusive medical benefits. The company builds aircraft carriers and submarines. It was one of 609 major businesses that earned a top rating.

The shipbuilder first participated in HRC's survey last year and scored an 85. The company's score was higher this year for a few reasons.

One was the addition of medical benefits for gender transition. The benefits include surgery, mental health services or other measures.

A piece in the Daily Press provides more on the views of the company's leadership and that of its parent company, including opposition to GOP backed license to discriminate laws masquerading as "religious freedom" laws:  

The nation’s largest military shipbuilder began ramping up efforts on diversity and inclusion several years ago at the behest of CEO and President Mike Petters.

He has vowed to change the culture of a corporate giant built on a foundation of shipyards, a traditional, male-dominated workplace. At Newport News, senior shipbuilders started walking the waterfront decades ago — back when attitudes on race, gender and sexual orientation were far different — so things won’t change overnight.

Changing the culture also means speaking out when necessary.

When the state of Mississippi advanced what supporters termed a religious freedom law, LGBTQ advocates rallied to oppose it.

Major business interests in the state opposed the bill, including MGM Resorts International, which operates casinos in the state, and Nissan North America. HII joined the opposition on behalf of its Ingalls Shipbuilding division in Pascagoula, Miss. 

Pride Fest 2016 Reflections

UPDATED: Unlike the Virginian Pilot, local channel TV-13 was at the same event I was at yesterday and notes among other things that THOUSANDS attended the event.  The link to the story is here.

American Rover - Pride parade of sail 2016

Another photo just before docking

Today at Pride Fest 2016 was amazing.  Despite the Virginian Pilot's current headline that "hundreds attend Pride" - once again the publication shows an anti-gay bias despite occasional pro-gay editorials and that a member of the Batten family was a sponsor of the event - the reality was that this year's event was by far the largest ever and it wasn't hundreds attending, but rather thousands and thousands of people.  The husband and I began the day aboard the American Rover (pictured above as it came along the Town Point Park waterfront) for the Pride boat parade (the only one in America) which was the last vessel in the parade.  

In the wake of the Orlando massacre, security was significantly increased with both Norfolk Police and Virginia State Police officers in plentiful view.  In addition, police has roof top surveillance and Coast Guard boats patrolled the harbor - one actually transported Pride Grand Marshall, Mercedes Douglas at the head of the boat parade.  It was quite an image: a drag queen in full regalia aboard a vessel armed with machine guns.  Talk about not piss a drag queen off! 

On the main stage one of the "headliners" was gay country musician Billy Gillman who gave a great performance.  Gillman, who came out as gay in 2014, has a great voice and is relatively easy on the eyes, with a tight body.  He was followed by Australian singer Betty Who - who had performed at Orlando Pride a week prior to the tragedy at Pulse - who likewise gave a great performance.  

View from the VIP/sponsor tent - police atop the building in the background

As for the weather, it was absolutely perfect.  If there was anything negative about the day, it was the small group of Christofascist protesters who police kept out of Town Point Park.  Taking a brief look at them, it's safe to say that they looked like a total losers who obviously suffer from a form of mental illness that drives them to condemn those who are different or who question their fairy tale based beliefs and their celebration of hate and ignorance.  But for these low life types the crowd was happy, peaceful and very well behaved.  In short, it was a totally wonderful day.

The 2016 Pride sponsors who included the husband and myself.  Again, note Newport News Shipbuilding as a presenting sponsor. Times are truly changing and the Christofascists and gay haters are coming closer and closer to being thrown on the trash heap of history where they belong. 

Virginian-Pilot: End Political Attacks on Gay Americans

click image to enlarge

Last night's Pride block party - the main lead off to today's Pride Fest in Norfolk's Town Point Park - was an amazing success with over five thousand people attending the event which was held in Norfolk's Scope.  Yes, it was a party (a very good one) but it recognized the fact that LGBT Americans and LGBT Virginians more so than some others remain subject to constant attacks and denigration by politicians seeking to whip up support or to prostitute themselves to the ugliest elements of the Christian Right.  The event also honored the dead and wounded in Orlando after a hate motivated attack where once again religion played a disgusting role.  One amazing aspect of Pride events this year is that America's premier shipbuilder, Newport News Shipbuilding, builder of America's nuclear carrier fleet, is one of the presenting sponsors.  In its lead editorial yesterday, the Virginian Pilot called for politicians - i.e., Republicans - to end their politically motivated attacks on LGBT Americans.  Here are editorial highlights:

While the nation mourns the loss of lives in Orlando, the pain remains especially acute and visceral for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

The shooter chose his target specifically because it was an LGBT-friendly nightclub. The victims were overwhelmingly members of this community. Evidence now suggests that the killer — married twice — may have been uncomfortably on the periphery of that same world.

Living as targets of violence and hatred, being victims of sometimes murderous intolerance, is nothing new for gay Americans. History is replete with instances of gays and lesbians brutalized for who they are or marginalized for political expediency.

Consider this an opportunity for America to do better.

[T]his specific horror represents the confluence of a great many political and social issues, and proposed solutions inspire overheated debate.

So here’s one straightforward suggestion: The nation, especially elected leaders with powerful positions of influence, should take this opportunity to affirm the equality of LGBT Americans — and stop using them as a target for political gain.

Until relatively recently, most LGBT Americans lived in the shadows, fearing the repercussions of being who they are. They feared ostracization and consequences legal, financial and physical due only to their sexual preference or gender identity.

That began to change with the Stonewall riots of 1969, generally considered the beginning of the modern LGBT movement. But, as with most civil rights movements, the transition to acceptance was achingly slow, replete with setbacks and suffering.

It wasn’t until 2003 that the Supreme Court struck down a Texas law prohibiting certain types of intimate, consensual sex — though many such statutes remain on the books.

Over the years, dog-whistle and direct attacks on gay people have fueled successful presidential campaigns and turned state legislatures. Even same-sex marriage, settled by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, remains a flashpoint in many states, especially across the South, and especially in places where politicians think it gives them some advantage.

Republicans in North Carolina are hoping to tread this same homophobic path in the coming general election, fearful of a voter backlash against retrograde policies and nanny-state meddling in matters of the heart and bedroom. They once again intend to use gay people as a political tool for re-election.

Such nonsense has to stop. The laws, the politicking, the dog-whistles and gutter rhetoric. LGBT citizens are, first and foremost, Americans, deserving of equal protection under the law and all the rights endowed to them by the Constitution.

[T]hose who employ these cynical and divisive attacks should be condemned for doing so — and those who respond favorably to such prejudice should be ashamed. Demonizing LGBT citizens has no place in our politics, and all who seek public office should recognize that, now more than ever.

This message, of course, will fall on deaf ears among Republicans and the Christofascists.  

The 2016 HP Pride Launch Event - Changing Hearts and Minds

The husband and I attended the HR Pride 2016 launch event this afternoon which works to raises funds for the June 18, 2016, Pride fest Event in Town Point Park on the downtown Norfolk waterfront.  The event has transformed dramatically since I was first on the HR Pride board of directors some years ago. The launch party has been equally transformed and this year was a standing room only event at the East Beach Pool/Club House hosted  by Lt. Governor Ralph Northam and his wonderful wife Pam.  The number of politicos in attendance has likewise increased dramatically and GOP House of Delegates member Scott Taylor was in attendance, demonstrating that a least some Republicans are waking up to the reality that an all welcoming Virginia is good for business. 

Perhaps the most surprising sponsors who pledged financial support were (i) Newport News Shipbuilding and WHRO who joined Decorum Furniture at the presenting sponsor level, and (ii) the Central Intelligence Agency - that's right, the CIA - which was a well into the 4 digit sponsor.  Other surprising sponsors were the City of Norfolk and two competing mayoral candidates. I lost track in the amount pledged today, but suffice it to say it was far in excess of $125,000.00.  As we have done for the last number of years, the husband and I are again sponsors of this amazing event which has become the largest outdoor festival in Norfolk after Harborfest.

Thirteen year ago when I attended my first "out in the Park" event it consisted of a few hundred people tucked out of sight in the back of one of Norfolk's city parks.  Now the event involves close to 20,000 attendees and the politicians - at least on the Democrat side of the aisle - who acted as if the LGBT community was radioactive, cannot go far enough to demonstrate their support for the LGBT community and LGBT equality under the civil laws. It has been a phenomenal sea change.

Sadly, the Virginia GOP continues to prostitute itself to the Christofascists and hate merchants at The Family Foundations and strives to send a worldwide message that Virginia is welcoming to only right wing extremists and modern day Pharisees.  Today's event underscored that the Virginia GOP is going to find itself resoundingly on the wrong side of history and, if we are lucky, politically irrelevant.  

GOP Del. Scott Taylor and Democrat Sen. Lynnwood Lewis

Congressman Bobby Scott

Lt. Governor Ralph Northam

Crystal Cruises Signs Option to Resurrect S.S. United States

Concept rendering of the resurrected S.S. United States

I have always loved ships and the husband and I love to cruise - we have booked another cruise for this coming October which will take us to the Bahamas, Dominican Republic and Grand Turk.  Years ago before it was moved to Philadelphia to languish I had the privilege of being aboard the S.S. United States.  Even in severe disrepair the ship was impressive.  Adding to local interest is that the ship - still the fastest liner ever built - was build just a few miles from where I sit at Newport News Ship Building.  Now, in what will hopefully lead to a full resurrection of the S.S. United States, Crystal Cruises has signed an option to buy the ship and transform it into a luxury liner once more.  Here are highlights from Conde Nast Traveler:

It wasn't that long ago that we made the bold claim that "Crystal Cruises may change cruising as we know it"—and it looks like the luxury cruise line isn't slacking. On the heels of an announcement that it plans to pivot the brand from a cruise-only company of two ships to a veritable lifestyle fleet of ocean, river, and small ships, Crystal also just signed a deal to resurrect the famed S.S. United States—once the fastest, largest, and at times, most glamorous passenger ships ever built in America—as a 400-suite, 800-guest ocean liner.

"It will be a very challenging undertaking, but we are determined to apply the dedication and innovation that has always been the ship’s hallmark,” Crystal President and CEO Edie Rodriguez said in a statement. Crystal Cruises will work with the S.S. United States Conservancy to conduct a technical feasibility study this year, to see how much work will be required to bring the 64-year-old ship up to modern standards; Crystal says it will cover all costs associated with the preservation. When the ship made its debut in 1952, it was a $70+ million beauty, more than 100 feet longer than the Titanic and the ship of choice for the glitterati, everyone from Marlon Brando to Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly. But it was retired abruptly in 1969, and has been docked (and seemingly doomed for the junkyard) on the Delaware River in Philadelphia.

[T]he United States’s mid-century modernism both influenced and helped popularize a newer, fresher, more forward-looking aesthetic.  

So why the need for speed? Per the S.S. United States Conservancy, the S.S. United States was developed to be a "super ship" as part of a Cold War–era Pentagon project; it could transform into a troop carrier, "able to transport 15,000 military service members 10,000 [nautical] miles without refueling" and reach 38 knots, or 44 miles per hour, at sea.  

When the S.S. United States sails again, it will join Cunard’s RMS Queen Mary 2 as the only true ocean liners still on the waves. 

A Last S.O.S. for the S.S. United States

The super liner U.S. United States was built at Newport News Shipbuilding less than ten miles from where I sit typing this post and was launched in the same year that I was born.   In her prime, she was the fastest ocean liner afloat and counted presidents, movie stars and royalty among her passengers.  Now, she is a rusting hulk facing the scrape yard if funds are not raised to maintain her while a plan to develop her into a water front attraction and hotel in New York City are completed.  The S.S. United States is small compared to some of today's massive cruise ships that resemble mammoth hotels slapped on a hull, but her sleek lines and wind swept superstructure recall the days when crossing the Atlantic was most often for the rich and famous.  The New York Times looks at the ship and the fate that I hope she manages to dodge.  Here are excerpts:

A Titanic-sized supership that once ferried presidents, Hollywood royalty, actual royalty and even the Mona Lisa has a place in the history books as the fastest oceanliner in the world. The owners are now racing to avoid having the ship, the S.S. United States, relegated to the junk heap.

A preservationist group, the S.S. United States Conservancy, saved the vessel from being scrapped a few years ago. Its members are working with a developer to give the mothballed vessel a new life as a stationary waterfront real-estate development in New York City, the ship’s home port in her heyday.

Their big dreams, however, now face a financial crisis: Short of money, the conservancy in recent days formally authorized a ship broker to explore the potential sale to a recycler. In other words, the preservationists might have to scrap their vessel.

The conservancy continues to seek out donors, investors or a buyer to preserve the ship and press forward with development. But unless something happens by Oct. 31, the group said in a statement, “We will have no choice but to negotiate the sale of the ship to a responsible recycler.”

The decision to seek bids from scrappers was “excruciating,” said Ms. Gibbs, particularly since the development plan emerged in the last year. “We’ve never been closer to saving the S.S. United States, and we’ve never been closer to losing her,” she said.

In the 1950s and ’60s, the ship was a marvel of technology and elegance, offering regular passenger service between New York and Europe. The 1952 maiden voyage smashed trans-Atlantic speed records. She was so fast, her propellers were a Cold War state secret.

Passenger jets doomed the superliners, however. The S.S. United States left service in the late 1960s. Today she is docked in Philadelphia, stripped of her interiors and rusting in the Delaware River across the street from an Ikea store.

The redevelopment plan is underway, said Keith Harper, vice president for design at Gibbs & Cox, the firm that originally designed the S.S. United States. Late last year, a real estate developer hired the firm to help devise specific ideas for possible reuse. . . . . The ship has roughly 600,000 square feet of floor space.

 
Admirers remain optimistic. Among them is John Quadrozzi, whose company happens to own a pier in Brooklyn big enough to accommodate an oceanliner. He says he would welcome the ship there, where docking costs would be considerably lower. The conservancy is considering the move, if the money can be raised.

The S.S. United States was conceived with two purposes: to provide luxury passenger service to and from Europe, and to quickly convert into a superfast military transport, although that need never arose. Built partly with government funds, the ship represented a powerful expression of American postwar optimism and ambition.

Newspapers speculated on her secret top speed and wrote about her comings and goings like no airplane route gets written about. In the 1950s and ’60s, she was featured in a Disney movie, a Munsters movie, and a sequel to the Marilyn Monroe blockbuster “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” according to a conservancy history. Her twin red-white-and-blue stacks can be glimpsed in the opening of “West Side Story.”

America, unlike much of Europe, destroys its history and historic buildings and, in this case, ships.  The S.S. United States is one of a kind and I hope the funds are found to save her and make her into a waterfront destination.    Consider making a donation here.

Saving an American Icon

The super liner SS United States was built less than 10 miles from where I live and there are many in the area still living who worked on its construction.  To this day it holds the speed record for Atlantic crossings by an ocean liner - its top speed still unknown, but having averaged 44 miles per hour on one crossing.  Not bad for a ship 990 feet long.  Built in 1952 (the year of my birth) the United States was among the last of the great liners that once were representatives of national pride and prestige.  Now the ship lies tied up in Philadelphia- for years it languished in Norfolk where I had the opportunity to go on board -  and her fate is uncertain although there is talk of moving her to New York City for conversion into a hotel/convention venue.  A piece in the New York Times looks at the ship which should be preserved as a national symbol.  Here are excerpts:

Once upon a time, it carried princes and potentates across the Atlantic in high style and at great speed.

Then it was towed ignominiously to Ukraine where the partitions and bulkheads that once divided luxurious cabins and glittering ballrooms were torn out to remove acres of asbestos.

And since 1996, the steamship United States has been tied to a Delaware River pier beside a South Philadelphia shopping mall, while chunks of paint peel off its black hull and red-and-white funnels.

Now, the 990-foot-long ocean liner that plied the Atlantic from 1952 until 1969 is the focus of what its financially struggling owner, the SS United States Conservancy, says is a final effort to save it from the scrap yard.

Saying the ship could be only months away from being broken up, the conservancy is in talks with three developers about its potential to become a hotel, museum, shopping and restaurant mall, entertainment complex, conference center, educational facility, or some combination of all options for reuse.

Conservancy officials say the ship has about 500,000 square feet of usable space that represents both a business opportunity and a means of rescuing the historic vessel, 45 years after losing its trans-Atlantic market to commercial aviation.

Scrapping the ship would destroy a piece of American social history and an engineering landmark that still holds the record for the fastest trans-Atlantic crossing by an ocean liner, said Susan L. Gibbs, executive director of the conservancy and granddaughter of the ship’s designer, William Francis Gibbs.   “There is no other American ocean liner left,” she said in an interview. “This is the last one.”

Redevelopment is expected to cost $170 million to $300 million, depending on the combination of uses, and “seed capital” of about $15 million will be needed for an initial phase of the project, Mr. McSweeney said. Putting the ship back into the cruise market could cost as much as $1 billion, which is too expensive to contemplate, he added.

He declined to identify the potential developers but said all would move the ship to New York, its former home port, where its commercial potential would be most likely to be realized.

Mr. McSweeney said that the conservancy — which bought the ship from Norwegian Cruise Line for $3 million in 2011 — also considered locating the ship in Miami, Baltimore, Boston and Philadelphia and other cities but that none matched New York.

The ship’s future may have parallels with the Rotterdam, another liner that sailed the Atlantic for Holland America Line from 1959 until 1997, and is now a mixed-used center in its home port.

After leaving service as a liner, the Rotterdam was bought by a Dutch government-backed company for 250 million euros and converted into spaces for businesses.

Since 2010, it has been occupied by shops and restaurants, a theater, a meeting center and a hotel, which together attract about 500,000 visitors a year, according to Casper van Hooren, a former investor in the project and now an adviser to the SS United States Conservancy.

Mr. van Hooren said the Rotterdam’s businesses over all are profitable, and he predicted that the liner United States would succeed as a result of New York’s many tourists.

Inside the ship, cabins once occupied by notable figures such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Harry Truman and Rita Hayworth are now marked by low dividers in the steel floor, while the ballroom where Duke Ellington once played for first-class passengers in tuxedos and ball gowns is a dimly lit shell overhung with disconnected pipes and wiring.

America routinely destroys its historic buildings and sites.  I hope the United States is saved.  If moved to New York City, we'd certainly visit it.

An SOS for the USS United States, "America's flagship"

As I have noted before, I have been fascinated with ships and especially the great ocean liners since I was a child.  One of the greatest ever of the ocean liners - the USS United States - was build as the crow flies less than ten miles from where the boyfriend and I live.  And when I say fast, I do mean fast: the top speed approaches 45 mph even though the ship measures 9990 feet in length (100 feet longer than Titanic).  Just this weekend I drove by Newport News Shipbuilding where the United States was build and saw the Aircraft Carrier Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) taking shape in a dry dock.  Sadly, the USS United States - which I was lucky enough to tour many years ago - faces a real threat of going to the scrap yard if funds are not raised to save her.  A piece in CNN looks at the effort to save the ship and her proud legacy which includes the fastest crossing times ever for a North Atlantic liner.  Here are highlights:

For me, touring the SS United States felt kind of like I was exploring my grandmother's attic for the first time, not knowing what I'd find.

The ship offers lots of room for surprises. It stretches the length of New York's Chrysler Building and is 100 feet longer than the Titanic.

Its legendary decks were the site of untold stories, where movie stars rubbed shoulders with famous musicians and kings.

And it's fast. On its first voyage, the SS United States set a trans-Atlantic speed record -- three days, 10 hours and 42 minutes -- a feat that has never been surpassed.

Now, six decades after its heyday, the vessel dubbed "America's flagship" is in need of a rescue. Expensive maintenance may force the owners to sell the historic ship for scrap metal, unless a solution can be found.

During my tour through the dark and damp shell of former grandeur, the vastness of Gibbs' creation became even more evident.

Gibbs, a naval architect responsible for nearly 5,500 Navy vessels that helped win World War II, put everything he had into his ultimate ship. The 2,200-passenger liner also was meant to double as a troop transport ship if war broke out.

Gibbs' obsession with creating the perfect ocean liner has now transformed into his granddaughter's obsession with saving it.

"This is an extraordinary American achievement, an amazing expression of our post-war history, and it would be so tragic to see it destroyed."

Standing in the sunlight flooding the hefty enclosed promenade, Gibbs admits she never traveled aboard "The Big U."

"I didn't know my grandfather. He died when I was young," she said, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows. "But I've gotten to know him through this ship. His spirit is here."   "He felt this was the perfect ship and loved what she said about the nation. He saw the ship as a metaphor for the nation's post-war strength, pride and accomplishment."

Gibbs remembers traveling to Philadelphia from her home in Washington to see the SS United States for the first time. Along the way, she read her grandmother's diary out loud in the car.  The journal revealed tales about the ship's maiden voyage and a joyful conga line celebrating the new speed record. It unveiled a bygone era when passengers donned mink stoles and enjoyed a liquor selection that included 49 kinds of scotch.

[T]he SS United States remains nothing less than majestic.  The longer I was on the ship, the easier it was to imagine it full of life. I could picture Marlon Brando chatting with artist Salvador Dali in the ballroom; hear Duke Ellington on stage tickling the ivories on one of the ship's fireproof pianos; or watch President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy strolling on the decks.

Keeping the ship afloat costs nearly $80,000 a month for basic maintenance, insurance and security.  The SS United States Conservancy launched a website where visitors can sponsor a piece of the ship for $1 per square foot.

Gibbs says they have about two months before they'll have to sell the ship for scrap -- something she won't even allow herself to think about.  

"Its name is the SS United States, and she's been here (in Philadelphia) for 17 years because she's not done yet," Gibbs said. "We have to save her."

America destroys so much of its history and then Americans ironically travel to Europe to visit the buildings and historic sites that Europeans preserve even as the ones in America are torn down.   It would be travesty to lose the USS United States.  Please consider donating to the Conservancy.  I have.

Senate Bill Includes Funds for Shipbuilding, Won't Stop Civilian Furloughs

(Steve Helber | The Associated Press)

The U. S. Senate has passed a bill that is aimed at blocking sequestration spending cuts that would severely hurt local shipbuilding and repair facilities, particularly Newport News Shipbuilding (see image above), Virginia's largest employer.  The bill, however, will not protect civilian government workers - some 39,000 in Hampton Roads alone - who face furloughs and 20% cuts in their income.  Thus, some local fools who were duped into voting Republican in 2012 by GOP overtures to racist views and religious extremism may well yet get their just deserves for their stupidity and bigotry.  It will be most interesting to see how Scott Rigell, Randy Forbes and Rob Wittman - and Eric Cantor - vote when the bill reaches the House of Representatives.  Here are excerpts from the Virginian Pilot's coverage:

The Senate approved legislation Wednesday to lock in $85 billion in widely decried spending cuts aimed at restraining soaring federal deficits — and to avoid a government shutdown just a week away. President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats rejected a call to reopen White House tours scrapped because of the tightened spending. 

The bill provides more than $3 billion to Newport News Shipbuilding, one of the region’s largest employers, to move forward on significant projects including the refueling of the carrier Abraham Lincoln, the dismantling of the retired carrier Enterprise and the start of construction of a new carrier, the John F. Kennedy. A Senate amendment, promoted by U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., also restores funding for a college tuition assistance program for active-duty service members.

However, the legislation doesn’t provide money to block the likely furloughs of civilian government employees, including as many as 39,000 Navy and Marine Corps civilian workers in Hampton Roads, as part of $85 billion in automatic budget cuts – known as sequestration.

Federal meat inspectors were spared furloughs, but more than 100 small and medium air traffic facilities were left exposed to possible closure as the two parties alternately clashed and cooperated over proposals to take the edge off across-the-board spending cuts that took effect on March 1.

Final House approval of the measure is likely as early as Thursday. Obama's signature is a certainty, meaning the cuts will remain in place at least through the end of the budget year on Sept. 30 — even though he and lawmakers in both parties have criticized them as random rather than targeted.

I can't help but find some satisfaction in the fact that of the 100+ airports that may be closed, most are in red states, especially in the mind-west.  I hope the Neanderthals out there enjoy their long drives to other airports and that their home states feel the impact of their backwardness.

Boehner Halts Talks on Cuts, and House G.O.P. Cheers

The story line in the right wing echo chamber is that sequestration was 100% a White House idea and efforts are being made to blame sequestration, which begins today, on anyone but the Congressional Republicans.  Outside of cuckoo land, all one need do is look at the House GOP's conduct to see which political faction is driving the nation into sequestration.  It is something that the cretins at Newport News Shipbuilding who voted for Mitt Romney and Scott Rigell take the time to remember as they receive their pink slips and notices that they are being laid off.   Ditto for Virginia Beach GOP voters who will hopefully now take a financial hit as well  The New York Times looks at the actual cheering the the House GOP engaged in as the despicable John Boehner ended all talks to avoid sequester yesterday.  Here are article excerpts:

WASHINGTON — Speaker John A. Boehner, the man who spent significant portions of the last Congress shuttling to and from the White House for fiscal talks with President Obama that ultimately failed twice to produce a grand bargain, has come around to the idea that the best negotiations are no negotiations.

As the president and Congressional Democrats have tried to force Mr. Boehner back to the table for talks to head off the automatic budget cuts set to take effect on Friday, Mr. Boehner has instead dug in deeper, refusing to even discuss an increase in revenue and insisting in his typical colorful language that it was time for the Senate to produce a measure aimed at the cuts. 

“The revenue issue is now closed,” Mr. Boehner said Thursday, before the House left town for the weekend without acting on the cuts and a Senate attempt to avert them died.

While the frustrations of Congressional Democrats and Mr. Obama with Mr. Boehner are reaching a fever pitch, House Republicans could not be more pleased with their leader. 

“We asked him to commit to us that when the cuts actually came on March 1, that he would stand firm and not give in, and he’s holding to that,” said Representative Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee. “I think Friday will be an important day that shows we’re finally willing to stand and fight for conservative principles and force Washington to start living within its means. And that will be a big victory.” 

Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, said that on the whole, he thought the spending cuts were a welcome development for which Mr. Boehner deserves credit.  

Mr. Boehner seems not only to have engendered the good will of his conference but also to have locked in place the spending cuts Republicans have been fighting for. “That’s a big win, to finally stand firm on cutting spending,” Mr. Scalise said.

 It's more than clear who the economic saboteurs really are.

Thousands of Lost Jobs: The Cost of Sequestration

Barack Obama appeared today at Newport News Shipbuilding and made a strong case locally for demanding that the Congressional Republicans stop playing games with the lives of thousands  - if not millions nationwide - of American families.  Also in the cross hairs of the GOP saboteurs is the nation's military.  Yes, the GOP blathers about "supporting our troops" even as they have sent our service members to their deaths and serious injury in needless wars that were paid for on the equivalent of a credit card.  Now, defense spending will be cut in a meat cleaver manner as opposed to a surgeon's scalpel.  How anyone in the military or the defense industry still believes a word coming out of the GOP noise machine is dumbfounding.  The Virginian Pilot looks at the local impact of the GOP effort to destroy the economy and leave thousands of Americans unemployed.   Here are highlights:

Thousands of blue-collar jobs will be lost if federal lawmakers don't strike a deal by the end if the week to avoid sweeping budget cuts, President Barack Obama told a crowd of about 3,000 shipyard workers this afternoon.

Standing in front of a massive propeller in a cavernous facility used to build submarines, Obama called on Congress to compromise or risk harming the economy in Hampton Roads.

"The main reason I'm here is to call attention to the important work that you’re doing on behalf of the nation’s defense, and to let the American people know that this work, along with hundreds of thousands of jobs, are currently in jeopardy because of politics in Washington," Obama said.

"These cuts are wrong. They're not smart, they're not fair. They're a self-inflicted wound that doesn't have to happen," Obama added at a shipbuilding site in Virginia.

The White House has warned the $85 billion in cuts could affect everything from commercial flights to classrooms to meat inspections. The cuts would slash domestic and defense spending, leading to forced unpaid days off for hundreds of thousands of workers.

At Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia's largest industrial employer, Obama renewed his effort to warn of the dire consequences the cuts could have on military readiness and local economies. He spoke in front of a massive submarine propeller, with workmen and the few female employees watching up from the cavernous assembly floor and down along railings from three open levels above.

"The threat of these cuts has already forced the Navy to cancel the deployment and delay the repair of certain aircraft carriers," Obama said.

Mike Petters , president and CEO of factory parent company Huntington Ingalls, said in an interview that the company will probably "throttle back" plans to hire between 10,000 and 15,000 workers over the next five years because of the budget uncertainty. He said his biggest headache in running the business is the continuing resolution.

Echoing Obama's warnings about the military repercussion were the five members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who traveled to Capitol Hill to say the cuts could impart a serious blow to military readiness. Their appearance marked the fourth time in the last three weeks that top Pentagon leaders have testified before Congress about the cuts.

Yes, you read that right - 10-15,000 workers at Newport News Shipbuilding alone.  Not surprisingly, GOP extremist Congressman Scott Rigell opted to accompany Obama since he likely knows that if sequestration happens and is rightfully blamed on the GOP, he may well not be re-elected in 2014. 

Budget Deadlock Creates Anger at Crucial Navy Shipyard

Today Barack Obama will visit Newport News Shipbuilding in nearby Newport News, Virginia.  This shipyard is crucial to the Navy since it is the only yard that can build atomic powered carriers.  It is crucial to Virginia because it is the state's largest single employer.  And it is about to get severely slammed by the sequestration that begins at week end.  The irony is that GOP Congressman Scott Rigell - one of the GOP extremists pushing the nation towards sequestration - will accompany Obama (as will Bobby Scott).  Both the boyfriend and I have family members who work at Newport News Shipbuilding and who may financial harm as a result of the sequestration cuts.  The other irony is that back in the lead up to the November 2012 elections, many of the less expensive homes in the area of Newport News near the shipyard had Romney and Rigell signs (the expensive homes had Obama signs).  Would that these cretins who supported Romney and Rigell could be the first workers laid off and furloughed.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the growing distress and anger at the shipyard.  Here are highlights which underscore that the GOP doesn't give a tinker's damn about everyday Americans:

As President Obama returned from a Florida golfing trip and Congress was on a Presidents’ Day break last week, Tommy Bassett, a nuclear machinist, was applying for a backup job at Lowe’s.

The carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was supposed to arrive at the massive shipyard here on Valentine’s Day for a multibillion-dollar overhaul that would take years and provide Bassett and some of the other 21,000 shipyard employees with steady work. But the budget deadlock in Washington prompted the Navy to delay the project. For how long, no one seems to know. Whether layoffs are coming — no one seems to know that, either.

Bassett is too anxious to wait to find out. His wife is having their first child in April, and she had to stop working for medical reasons. “If the budget doesn’t come in, they don’t have money for us,” Bassett said. “I haven’t told her yet . . . I didn’t want her to worry.”

Residents are bitter and resentful. It’s difficult to have a conversation without getting an earful of expletives. And there is little patience here for serving as political props in Washington’s latest budget drama.

Newport News sits at the heart of Hampton Roads, a region whose economy and identity are based largely on the tens of thousands of military personnel, contractors and veterans who live and work here. SEAL Team 6 is based in the region. Jets from Naval Air Station Oceana regularly buzz along the Virginia Beach coast.

Newport News is where the Navy makes aircraft carriers and submarines, and this city of 180,000 feels like a company town, where generations of families have found good-paying jobs making something lasting.  Many fear that prideful past and the community it helped build will fall victim to Washington-style pettiness and irresponsibility.

Executives from defense behemoth Huntington Ingalls Industries, which runs Newport News Shipbuilding, say they are disappointed by the delays in the massive, carefully staged Lincoln overhaul project, which will end up costing taxpayers even more later. Other contractors in Hampton Roads have already warned of major potential layoffs.

“The way you keep costs down is to have predictability and continuity — the exact opposite of what we have right now,” said Newport News City Manager Neil Morgan, who keeps close tabs on operations at the shipyard, the city’s “powerhouse employer.”

Johnson wants Obama to come to Hampton Roads and take it straight to his colleagues at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.  “I put it on Congress, I don’t put it on him,” Johnson said. “They’re messing with the military, and I don’t appreciate it. They’re messing with me. He needs to let people know that when he gets down here.”

Yes, many need to get the message that they were played as fools by Republicans in the last election and the now so prevalent racism and religious extremism of the GOP was used  to convince people to foolishly vote against their own best interests.  Many may well be about to pay the price for their foolishness and bigotries and prejudices.

 

GOP Extremism Hits Hampton Raods Defense Industry

Hampton Roads is about to be dealt a harsh economic blow as sequestration hits next month and the irony is that many local voters elected a trio of GOP extremists - Randy Forbes, Scott Rigell and Rob Wittman - who are part cadre of GOP saboteurs in the House of Representatives that are about to inflict the grievous economic wound to the region.  As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.  Besides delaying the deployment of the carrier Harry S. Truman, the U.S. Navy has announced that it will delay sending the carrier Abraham Lincoln in for a lengthy and expensive ($3.3 billion) overhaul at Newport News Shipbuilding, Virginia's largest private employer.  Literally thousands of jobs are in limbo.  What's disturbing that Forbes, Rigell and Wittman never miss a beat in pandering to Christofascists and Tea Party elements of the Republican Party base, but when it comes to the jobs and livelihoods of thousands of Virginians they are missing in action and as Rhett Butler said to Scarlett, "don't give a damn."  A further irony is that but for GOP gerrymandering of congressional districts prior to the 2012 elections, Rigell would likely have been voted out of office back in November.  Both my partner and I have several family members employed at Newport News Shipbuilding, so these worries are personal.  But on a larger scale, perhaps some local knee jerk supporters of the GOP will finally open their eyes to the fact that today's GOP is toxic and a threat to the region's and nation's future.  Here are details from a Virginian Pilot piece on the coming GOP caused economic blows to Hampton Roads:

Ever since the Abraham Lincoln pulled into its new homeport at Norfolk Naval Station in August, the crew has been working to prepare the aircraft carrier for its midlife nuclear refueling.

But less than a week before the ship was set to steam to the shipyard in Newport News, the Navy announced it was postponing the elaborate overhaul because of a lack of funding - the latest in a line of drastic defense cuts tied to the federal budget crisis.  The Lincoln will remain moored at the Norfolk base until Congress resolves the shortfall created by its inability to agree on a budget, a Navy spokesman said.

"The fiscal uncertainty created by not having an appropriations bill, and the measures we are forced to take as a result, place significant stress on an already strained force and undermine the stability of a fragile industrial base," Navy spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Chris Servello said in a statement. The overhaul was timed to take place midway through the 50-year lifespan of the Lincoln, which was commissioned in 1989.

In addition to the Lincoln not being ready to deploy for a longer period, the postponement also affects other carriers scheduled to enter the shipyard. Particularly affected will be the dismantling of the recently inactivated carrier Enterprise, set to begin in June, and the pending refueling of the carrier George Washington, scheduled for 2016.

The change will affect numerous jobs at Newport News Shipbuilding. The Lincoln's "refueling and complex overhaul" is expected to take at least three years and cost $3.3 billion. Servello said the Navy's funding is short by $1.5 billion.

The move will also affect the local economy.  Weeks ago, the Navy released a list of tentative cuts because of the budget squeeze, including plans to cancel third- and fourth-quarter ship maintenance. Retired Rear Adm. Joe Carnevale, a defense adviser with the Shipbuilders Council of America, said those cancellations will cost tens of thousands of shipyard jobs nationwide and will have ripple effects for companies down the supply chain.  "In delaying the Lincoln's midlife overhaul, that's just going to add to the job losses," Carnevale said.

"The men and women who serve our nation in uniform deserve better than this," said Rep. Bobby Scott, a Newport News Democrat. "The men and women at Newport News Shipbuilding who build, repair, and maintain the most advanced naval fleet in the world, deserve better than this."

The announcement comes two days after defense officials canceled deployment of the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. The 5,000 sailors in the Truman strike group were to have deployed Friday, but the budget squeeze will keep them in port.

I hope that employees that end up being laid off take the time to thank their neighbors who voted for Messrs. Forbes, Rigell and Wittman.  Like most in the GOP these men talk a lot about supporting our troops and the military, but it's all talk.  The lunacy of extremists in the GOP base count far more to them than our men and women in uniform and hardworking men and women who build and maintain our nation's naval fleet. I increasingly find it embarrassing to admit that I was ever a Republican given what the GOP has become.

Math for Romney's Navy Spending Plan Doesn't Add Up

Here in Hampton Roads, Virginia where the military, especially the Navy, predominates pretty much everything else, talk of increases in spending on the U. S. Navy and increased ship construction always catches one's attention.  And, if you're Mitt Romney, you hope vague promises of more Navy ships will snare you more votes.  Frankly, Romney's statements on Navy ship construction are pretty transparent: he's out to get the votes of military personnel in this area and similar areas where the Navy is a predominate factor in the short term.  As for actually delivery on the promise - like so much else the man says - it is probably a far different story.  Why, because like everything else Romney id promising, the math just simply doesn't add up.  Meaning to me, that either Romney's lying yet again or he intends to have the nation's budget deficit utterly explode if he's elected.  The New York Times looks at the math versus Romney's statements on building more Navy  vessels (which would also translate into more Navy personnel):

GROTON, Conn. — Here in the Submarine Capital of the World, where the business of undersea warfare employs nearly 20,000 people, no one dismisses Mitt Romney’s plan to build three Virginia-class nuclear attack submarines a year instead of the two built each year under President Obama. 

But with each submarine costing more than $2 billion, there is skepticism about how to pay for them, even from Representative Joe Courtney, a Connecticut Democrat who in 2007 successfully pushed to have the Navy build two submarines a year instead of one and has been known ever since as “Two Subs Joe.” .  .  .  .  the Romney campaign’s math for how to do it, he argued, “is not realistic at all.”

Whoever is right, building more military ships is at the heart of Mr. Romney’s plan to gradually increase military spending to 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, a major increase from the Obama administration’s budget. 

[T]he nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, has calculated that even if a Romney administration slowly increases the military budget to 4 percent of the G.D.P. over two presidential terms, that would still amount to spending $7.5 trillion over the next decade — or $1.8 trillion more than the Obama administration plans for the Pentagon’s base budget in the same period. 

[Romney's] most specific proposals are to increase the reach and power of the Navy, which plays well in the critical battleground states of Florida and Virginia, both home to large naval installations. 

Ms. Flournoy’s central argument is that Mr. Romney’s plan to peg military spending to 4 percent of the G.D.P. is not based, she said, on a strategy, a threat assessment or what the Pentagon says it needs. “It’s simply ‘Let’s throw a figure against the wall and look tough on defense,’ ” she said in an interview. 

Since Mr. Romney is reluctant to put tax increases on the table to pay for the spending increase, she said, there would have to be “draconian” cuts to the rest of the federal budget, including entitlement programs. 

In Groton, the numbers that matter are people. About 10,000 sailors, other military personnel and civilians work on the Navy’s submarine base each day. Electric Boat, which shares the building of the two submarines a year with the Newport News Shipbuilding division of Huntington Ingalls, employs more than 8,000 people at its facilities in Groton and across the Thames River in New London. 

Still, there are reservations in Groton about ever more submarines.  “Look, of course we’d love three subs a year,” said Tony Sheridan, the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut, who identified himself as a Democrat. “But we’re also responsible Americans, and we know that we have to deal with the deficit.” 

Romney never explains where the extra $1.8 billion for military spending would come from.  Hence my prediction:  If elected, Romney will break his promise for more ship building.  Meanwhile. voters  like those in Newport News, Virginia near the shipyard who have Romney signs in their yards will have been effectively played for suckers.  Which is exactly Romney's plan.  If Romney's lips are moving, odds are that he's lying. Oddly enough, near the shipyard, the owners of the wealthier homes seem to have figured this out: they for the most part have Obama signs in their yards.  It's the folks in the less expensive homes that have fallen for Romney's bullshit and lies.