Lawmaker Demands Air Force Justify Threatening Troops’ Careers for Attending Conservative ‘Turning Point’ Rally

Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana is pressuring the Air Force to conduct an investigation of text messages warning against attending a conservative rally, according to a letter obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

A master sergeant at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota urged leaders to caution their troops about the potential for violence aimed at military members at a conservative rally or participating in the featured political advocacy group in leaked text messages on November 17, Fox News first reported. Banks, who chairs the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee and heads the chamber’s Anti-Woke Caucus, said the texts from an unidentified leader defamed a conservative organization and interfered in an Airman’s right to free assembly and the political process, the letter stated.

Read More

Congress’ $886 Billion Defense Spending Bill is $26 Billion More Than Last Year’s, as Debt Climbs to $33 Trillion

The $886 billion defense spending bill that the GOP-led House is poised to vote on in the coming days is $26 billion more that the previous year, as the national debt climbs to $33 trillion. The bill has received bipartisan votes in both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

Read More

Gordon Chang Commentary: It’s Time to Bankrupt China

“We are probably not going to be able to do anything to stop, slow down, disrupt, interdict, or destroy the Chinese nuclear development program that they have projected out over the next 10 to 20 years,” said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley on March 29 at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. “They’re going to do that in accordance with their own plan.”

Milley is wrong about China’s nuclear weapons ambitions. He is, unfortunately, expressing the same pessimism that pervaded the Nixon, Ford and Carter years, when the American foreign policy establishment took the Soviet Union as a given and therefore promoted détente.

Read More

Report: The U.S. Military Is Almost Completely Dependent on China for Key Mineral Used in Ammunition

The U.S. military depends almost completely on China for a mineral essential to the production of ammunition and other defense products, Defense News reported Wednesday.

The House Armed Services Committee released draft legislation on Wednesday which would require a briefing on the antimony supply by October and a five-year outlook on supply chain vulnerabilities, Defense News reported. The U.S. has no domestic mine for the mineral antimony, which is reportedly used in the production of night vision goggles, armor-piercing bullets, explosives and nuclear weapons.

Read More

‘You Broke the Military’: Milley, Austin Set for Second Congressional Grilling on Afghanistan

Top American military leaders are set for another round of intense congressional grilling on Wednesday, following a day-long Tuesday session that at times featured blistering criticism of their part in the U.S. exit from Afghanistan.

The Tuesday hearing placed on the griddle Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin; U.S. Central Command Chief Gen. Frank McKenzie; and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.

Read More

Bipartisan House Leaders Say National Guard Presence at Capitol Is Unwarranted

The Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Armed Services Committee called the current National Guard deployment on Capitol Hill unwarranted.

Democratic Rep. Adam Smith and Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, the committee’s respective chairman and ranking member, asked the Department of Defense to implement a “measured drawdown” of the guardsmen stationed at the Capitol in a joint statement Thursday.

Read More