Tag: Pentagon

Pentagon’s ‘Strategic Management Plan’ Devotes Roughly One Out of Every Six Pages to Diversity, Climate Change

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

Nearly one of every six pages of a document detailing the Pentagon’s management strategy are devoted to combating climate change and fulfilling Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.

The Strategic Management Plan for 2022 to 2026, released Tuesday, covers 124 pages and underscores the actions the Department of Defense (DOD) is taking to fulfill the Biden administration’s broader national defense strategy. It lays out high-level, long term goals and steps the department will take to accomplish those objectives and overcome anticipated challenges, as well as performance metrics for so-called Agency Priority Goals (APGs) that include climate and diversity targets.

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Pentagon, FBI Collaborated on AI, Facial Recognition Tech for Federal Agencies, Documents Show

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The Department of Defense (DOD) and the FBI collaborated on an artificial intelligence-driven facial recognition technology program provided to at least six federal agencies and a Pentagon agency that supports civilian police forces, The Washington Post reported.

The facial recognition software could be used to identify individuals whose features were captured by drones and CCTV cameras, the Post reported, citing documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request as part of an ongoing lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed against the FBI.  The documents reveal federal authorities were more deeply involved in development of the technology than was previously known, sparking concerns over Americans’ privacy rights.

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U.S. Weapons Aid for Ukraine Could Extend Years Beyond the War, Top Pentagon Official Says

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The Biden administration plans to provide lethal assistance to Ukraine for years after the war to end Russia’s invasion reaches a conclusion, the Pentagon’s top official for policy and planning testified before Congress Tuesday.

The U.S. has provided more than $30 billion worth of weapons and equipment since the war in Ukraine began one year ago, including millions of artillery rounds and high-end equipment that requires years to produce and months during which to train Ukrainian troops. Regardless of how the war ends, the U.S. will need to continue providing Kyiv with weapons and military support for years to discourage Russia from making a subsequent attempt at conquering Kyiv, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Dr. Colin Kahl told the House Armed Services Committee at a hearing Tuesday.

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Pentagon Will Pay for Travel to Other States for Abortions

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The Department of Defense (DOD) will pay for troops to travel to states that allow abortions and obtain so-called “reproductive health care” at non-military facilities, according to a new policy released Thursday evening.

The landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision gave states the authority to determine localized abortion policies. The Hyde amendment bars DOD from administering abortions at military medical facilities, the new policy carves out provisions for expanded leave times and set-aside funding for servicemembers stationed in states that restrict abortions to cross state boundaries to obtain the procedure.

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Pentagon Still Can’t Account for Roughly $220 Billion in Equipment, Gov’t Watchdog Says

Admin

The Department of Defense (DOD) has neglected to address its inability to keep track of at least $220 billion in equipment provided to government contractors, according to a Tuesday report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Auditors first reported the Pentagon’s failure to account for government-owned equipment or material offered up for use to contracting agencies, also called government furnished property, in 2001, according to the report. DOD has made little improvement since then, increasing the risk that the Pentagon could accidentally overlook errors in the books.

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Pentagon Officially Overturns Military Vaccine Mandate

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The Department of Defense (DOD) officially scrapped the requirement that all members of the armed forces be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 on Tuesday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin introduced the mandate in August 2021 as Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccines were expected to become available, citing the impact of rising case numbers on the military’s readiness. However, after more than a year of legal challenges to the mandate and at least 8,400 discharges for refusing the vaccine, Congress instructed Austin to reverse course in the fiscal year 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

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‘Twitter Files’ Expose Coordination with CIA, State Department, Pentagon

Admin

The latest installment of the “Twitter Files” revealed that the FBI acted “as a doorman” for the social media giant to other government agencies, including the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon.

“Twitter had so much contact with so many agencies that executives lost track,” journalist Matt Taibbi wrote as he released the ninth batch of internal Twitter files on Saturday evening. “Is today the DOD, and tomorrow the FBI? Is it the weekly call, or the monthly meeting? It was dizzying.”

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‘Twitter Files’ Reveal Platform Aided Pentagon Propaganda Efforts Abroad

Just the News

The most recent release of Twitter’s internal documents, dubbed the “Twitter Files,” details the platform’s cooperation with the Pentagon to promote propaganda materials in line with the military’s strategic geopolitical interests.

Released by The Intercept’s Lee Fang, the latest release detailed Pentagon requests that the platform either verify or “whitelist” a plethora of accounts it used to “amplify certain messages.” Whitelisting an account exempts it from spam and abuse flags while also making it more likely to trend.

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Woke Ideology Eroding War-Fighting Capability Inside Pentagon, New Congressional Report Warns

Just the News

A report released Monday by two Republicans in Congress alleged the Biden administration’s injection of liberal ideologies like Critical Race Theory into the Pentagon is harming military readiness and the safety of troops.

“President Joe Biden and his administration are weakening America’s warfighters through a sustained assault fueled by woke virtue signaling,” Sen. Marco, Rubio, of Florida, and Rep. Chip Roy, of Texas, wrote in the new report, titled “WOKE WARFIGHTERS: How Political Ideology is Weakening America’s Military.”

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Commentary: With Recruitments at Record Lows, Our Sons and Daughters May Soon Be Feeling the Draft

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

This year the U.S. Army missed its annual recruiting goal by 25 percent, or 20,000 soldiers. That’s more than an entire division, which includes 10,000-20,000 troops. The National Guard missed its target by 9,000 recruits and applications are down more than 20 percent at Annapolis and West Point. This has the Pentagon looking for new ways to fill the ranks, but an old one might get the nod.

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Pentagon Watchdog Flags Potentially Illegal Blanket Denials of COVID Vax Religious Exemptions

Admin

The Defense Department’s inspector general has alerted the secretary of defense to apparent blanket denials of religious accommodation requests (RAR) for exemptions from the military COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which would be a violation of federal law.

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Military Law Expert: Harsh Sanctions for the Military’s COVID-19 Vax Resisters

Neil W. McCabe

Neil W. McCabe, the national political editor of The Star News Network, interviewed Dwight Stirling, the CEO of The Center for Law and Military Policy, about the process of discharging unvaccinated servicemembers now that all the deadlines have passed for President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s military COVID-19 vaccine mandate has passed.

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U.S. Relies on Russia for Key Materials in Defense Production

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The U.S. depends on Russia to supply key minerals used in technology and defense industries, but the Russia-Ukraine war and Western economic punishment of Russia have suppressed supply lines, according to a report from Defense News.

Russia and Ukraine supply a large percentage of minerals like neon and aluminum that the U.S. uses in civilian and military applications, Deborah Rosenblum, a Pentagon acting spokesperson who works on industrial base policy, told Defense News. Sanctions levied on Russian companies and a war-related drop in mineral production have put these supply chains in jeopardy, she said.

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Pentagon May Allow HIV-Positive Recruits, After Mass Firing of Unvaccinated

Admin

On Wednesday, he Department of Defense (DOD) announced recently that it had updated its guidelines regarding the recruitment of potentially HIV-positive individuals, now opening the door to letting people with the deadly disease serve in the military.

As reported by the Daily Caller, the DOD said that any members who test positive for the virus may continue to serve so long as they do not display any clear symptoms, according to a department memo that was recently made public.

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Biden Pentagon Let 50 Afghans Posing Serious Security Risks into the United States, Watchdog Finds

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The Biden administration failed to use all available screening data to vet Afghan refugees brought to the United States last year, allowing at least 50 individuals posing “potentially significant security concerns” to make it inside America’s borders, the Pentagon’s chief watchdog is warning.

To make matters worse, the Defense Department inspector general reported to Congress this week that 28 of 31 Afghan evacuees with known “derogatory information” can no longer be located.

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Commentary: Can America Citizens Trust the U.S. Government?

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
aerial view of The Pentagon

Do you trust the U.S. government? I don’t recommend it.

Consider what John Kirby, a spokesman for the Pentagon, said a couple of days ago at a press briefing. “We believe,” Kirby said, that Russia is planning to stage a fake attack by Ukrainian military or intelligence forces against Russian sovereign territory, or against Russian speaking people,” in order to justify an invasion of Ukraine. Kirby had lots of details: “We believe that Russia would produce a very graphic propaganda video, which would include corpses and actors that would be depicting mourners, and images of destroyed locations, as well as military equipment, at the hands of Ukraine or the West.”

Gosh. Should we be worried? Yes. But not necessarily for the reasons that Kirby and his puppet masters want you to be worried. The United States is sending troops and arms to aid Ukraine, so of course there needs to be an emergency to justify that action. John Kirby just outlined a scary scenario. But inquiring minds want to know: What’s his evidence for this dramatic claim?

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U.S. to Send 3,000 Additional Troops to Europe Amid Tension at Ukraine Border

The Center Square

President Joe Biden plans to send another 3,000 troops to Europe amid continued tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Biden is sending about 2,000 troops from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Poland and Germany this week. The president is also moving about 1,000 soldiers based in Germany to Romania, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing administration officials.

“They are trained and equipped for a variety of missions during this period of elevated risk,” a senior defense official told the Wall Street Journal.

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Pentagon Issues New Guidance on ‘Extremist Behavior’ Within Military Ranks

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

On Monday, the Department of Defense, in an effort to further crack down on political dissent, is revising its previous definitions of “extremist behavior” in order to deter uniformed members from certain political affiliations, CNN reports.

The Countering Extremism Working Group, a panel that was created for the purpose of ostensibly investigating “extremism” within military ranks, issued a report outlining its findings, claiming that there are indeed some “extremists” in the military. The report alleges that there were roughly 100 instances of uniformed members who either had “extremist” beliefs or joined “extremist” groups in 2021, which the report claims is an increase from previous years.

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Biden Says ‘Willing to Lose’ Presidency over Decisions Including Pandemic, Afghanistan, Middle Class

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

President Biden this past weekend suggested he would be willing to lose his presidency over his decisions on several key issues including his widely criticized withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In a CBS “Sunday Morning” interview in which he was asked whether he was discouraged by the criticism over his handling of the pandemic and other first-year challenges, Biden answered “No.”

“But look,” he continued. “One of the things we did decide, and I mean this, my word as a Biden, I know what I’m willing to lose over. If we walk away from the middle class, if we walk away from trying to unify people, if we start to engage in the same kind of politics that the last four years has done? I’m willing to lose over that.”

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Pentagon Didn’t Delay Sending Guardsmen to Capitol on January 6th, Report Conflicts with Pelosi Narrative

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The Pentagon responded appropriately and in a timely fashion to urgent requests for National Guard assistance on the day of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach, according to a Defense Department inspector general report released Wednesday.

“We also determined that DoD officials did not delay or obstruct the DoD’s response,” reads the report.

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Oklahoma National Guard Defies Pentagon, Won’t Impose COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff

The newly installed head of the Oklahoma National Guard has ordered that troops under his command will not be forced to comply with the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for members of the armed forces.

“No Oklahoma Guardsman will be required to take the COVID-19 Vaccine,” Army Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino wrote in a Thursday memo. The memo was at odds with a Defense Department directive that the “total force” – including the National Guard – must be vaccinated against COVID-19.

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Commentary: The New Nuclear Arms Race

Pennsylvania Daily Star Staff
President Joe Biden and Personal Aide Stephen Goepfert walk through the Colonnade, Friday, August 6, 2021, on the way to the Oval Office of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

The Defense Department just released its annual report on China’s military power, and the report undermines those in the Biden administration who are promoting nuclear arms reductions with Russia and the adoption of a policy of “no first use” of nuclear weapons — a policy that is opposed by most of America’s allies.

The Pentagon’s report could not be clearer: “Over the next decade, the PRC aims to modernize, diversify, and expand its nuclear forces.” It is “expanding the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces.” This includes the construction of “fast breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities” that will enable China to “produce and separate plutonium.”

The report projects that the PRC will have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027, and perhaps 1,000 by 2030, significantly more than the Pentagon projected in last year’s report. China has what the report calls a “nascent ‘nuclear triad,’” with the capability to launch nuclear missiles from land, sea, and air platforms. It has expanded its silo-based force and moved to a “launch-on-warning” posture. Last year, the PLA “launched more than 250 ballistic missiles for testing and training,” a number greater then the rest of the world combined. It is growing its inventory of DF-26 intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and those missiles are capable of launching multiple independent warheads — known as MIRV capabilities. The CCP has ordered the construction of “hundreds of new ICBM silos” and is “doubling the number of launchers in some ICBM units.” China’s CSS-10 Mod 2 ICBM has a range of 11,000 kilometers, which makes it capable or reaching most targets within the continental United States. China is also investing in space and counterspace capabilities, including kinetic-kill missiles, orbiting space robots, and ground-based lasers.

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