The Department of Defense could be banned from denying service members and civilian employees leave to obtain an abortion, according to a proposed defense appropriations bill draft by House Democrats.
The House Appropriations Committee shared the proposal on Tuesday in a draft that includes more than $760 billion in defense funding.
The <a href="https://appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/appropriations-committee-releases-fiscal-year-2023-defense-funding-bill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bill</a>, if approved as proposed, &#8220;Prohibits funds for denying leave to servicemembers or civilians requesting leave to obtain an abortion.&#8221;
Regarding abortion services for military personnel, current provisions are limited.
&#8220;The military is already limited in its ability to provide abortions under the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding from being used for most abortions,&#8221; The Hill <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3522683-first-draft-of-house-democrats-defense-funding-bill-prevents-pentagon-from-denying-leave-for-abortions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. &#8220;Tricare, the military’s health care program, only covers abortions if a pregnancy was the result of rape or incest, or if the pregnancy puts the mother’s life at risk.&#8221;
The <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP02/20220615/114901/BILLS-117-SC-AP-FY2023-Defense-DefenseBill.pdf">text</a> of the proposed change also includes the ability for those supporting a person obtaining an abortion to request leave. It includes personnel or a civilian employee &#8220;who is the spouse, partner, or significant other of a pregnant individual and requests leave to assist that individual in obtaining an abortion.&#8221;
The provision is interestingly included in the final page of text in the current 142-page draft.
The action is part of $38.05 billion for the Department of Defense&#8217;s medical and health care programs.
The Fiscal Year 2023 Defense Funding Bill funds agencies and programs in the Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community, including the Services, Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, according to a press release from the House Appropriations Committee.
The latest draft includes a military budget increase of more than $32 billion over the previous year.
Another major line item proposed in the budget includes &#8220;critical security assistance to Ukraine with resources for training, equipment, weapons, supplies and services, salaries and stipends, and intelligence support to the Ukrainian military and national security forces.&#8221;
Among the other controversial aspects included in the proposed budget is to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.
The abortion-related proposal also comes as the Supreme Court is expected to soon release a ruling in a Mississippi case that could upend the precedent of Roe v. Wade and return decisions regarding abortion laws to individual states.
It is uncertain how the case would apply to military members.
A bill was proposed earlier this month by 81 House Democrats to fund or provide abortions for military members.
&#8220;The fallout for our service members and their families will be catastrophic, as is the threat to our military readiness, morale and unit cohesion,&#8221; California Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier, chair of the House Armed Services Committee&#8217;s military personnel subcommittee, said in a <a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2022/06/03/military-could-expand-abortion-services-under-new-bill-floated-democrats.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>. &#8220;Our brave service members deserve the same access to basic health care as the people they are fighting to protect.&#8221;

females in military

House Dems Draft Defense Funding Bill That Prevents Pentagon From Denying Abortion Leave

House Democrats Draft Defense Funding Bill That Prevents Pentagon From Denying Leave For Abortions

Abortion

Budget

Democrats

Department of Defense

Military

Reports are surfacing that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will lend a hand as the United States government searches for evidence of UFOs.
Earlier this month, the Department of Defense announced it would form a task force called the Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group (AOIMSG) to investigate UFOs
“It&#8217;s going to be some sort of working group that will help support the DoD,” a source “affiliated with the U.S. government and familiar with NASA&#8217;s UAP research” told <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10857857/NASA-confirms-ramping-efforts-help-UFO-investigation.html">the Daily Mail</a>.
“I suspect it will be a combination of efforts that will include perhaps firsthand eyewitness testimony of NASA employees and astronauts, and then perhaps a review of old archival footage to assess if there are some findings within the NASA archives that can help AOIMSG,” the source added.
The Pentagon&#8217;s UFO team has asked for footage from shuttle cameras attached to previous NASA flight missions, the source declared.
“The limited number of high-quality observations of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, which includes reported objects that cannot be immediately identified by individuals, currently makes it impossible to draw scientific conclusions about the nature of UAPs,” NASA senior science communications officer Karen Fox admitted.
“NASA is evaluating how to provide our expertise in space-based Earth observations to improve understanding of UAPs,” she added.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said last <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hH1XEqKlTs&amp;t=3216s">October</a> that Navy pilots revealed to him they had encountered objects that had unbelievable flying capacity in 2004. He said, &#8220;I&#8217;ve talked to those pilots and they know they saw something, and their radars locked on to it. They we don&#8217;t know what it is. We hope it&#8217;s not an adversary here on Earth that has that kind of technology. But it&#8217;s something.”
In April 2021, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon confirmed that images and videos showing unidentified flying objects following Navy warships in 2019 near the coast of California were indeed taken by members of the Navy.
Spokeswoman Susan Gough told <a href="https://www.mysterywire.com/ufo/pictures-and-video-show-unidentified-flying-objects-moving-above-u-s-navy-warships/">Mystery Wire</a>:
<blockquote>I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel. The UAPTF has included these incidents in their ongoing examinations. As we have said before, to maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.</blockquote>
The incidents Gough referred to occurred in July 2019 and revealed unidentified objects following four U.S. destroyers: the USS Kidd, the USS John Finn, the USS Russell, and the USS Rafael Peralta.
Naval officers utilized a night vision device revealing what looked like pyramid-shaped objects over the USS Russell.
“This (video) was taken on deployment from the USS Russell,” filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, who reportedly <a href="https://www.the-sun.com/news/2683726/us-navy-filmed-ufo-sky-video/">received the leaked video</a>, said to <a href="https://www.8newsnow.com/mystery-wire/pictures-and-video-show-unidentified-flying-objects-moving-above-u-s-navy-warships/">8Newsnow,</a> “It shows what they described as vehicles. And they made a great distinction. They made sure in this classified briefing, they made a great distinction that this is not something that we own either a black project, this is not something of a foreign military, that these were behaving in ways that we did not expect. And that they were you know shaped non aerodynamically. Like pyramids, these are flying pyramids!”
Corbell, who also received three photos from the USS Omaha combat ship of an unidentified &#8220;spherical&#8221; vehicle, continued, “These are authentic photos and video from actual military encounters with UFOs — generated to educate high-level intelligence officers within our military on the nature and presentation of the UAP/UFO phenomenon. It is my hope that these materials will be representative of a unique moment in modern history; a possible turning point towards the rational and transparent approach of investigating and exploring the mystery of the UFO phenomenon.”

Largest World Organizations

NASA Now Helping Pentagon Investigation Into UFOs: Report

Pentagon

During President Joe Biden&#8217;s hasty — and badly botched — withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan last year, billions of dollars in weapons and military equipment were left behind, according to a new Pentagon report.
&#8220;In all, about $7 billion worth of hardware remained in the country after the Taliban seized control, according to the report prepared for Congress which was obtained by CNN,&#8221; the Daily Mail <a class="class" href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noreferrer noopener">reported.</a>
&#8220;That includes almost $1 billion of aircraft — rendered inoperable and dumped at Hamid Karzai International Airport — some 22,000 military Humvees and almost all the communications equipment supplied during the course of the conflict,&#8221; the UK paper wrote.
CNN sought to explain the situation, saying &#8220;$7 billion of military equipment the US transferred to the Afghan government over the course of 16 years was left behind in Afghanistan after the US completed its withdrawal from the country in August.&#8221;
&#8220;The US gave a total of $18.6 billion of equipment to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) from 2005 to August 2021, according to the report,&#8221; CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/afghan-weapons-left-behind/index.html">reported</a>. &#8220;Of that total, equipment worth $7.12 billion remained in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal was completed on August 30, 2021. It included aircraft, air-to-ground munitions, military vehicles, weapons, communications equipment and other materials, according to the DoD report.&#8221;
&#8220;Much of the remaining equipment&#8221; that was abandoned in Afghanistan requires &#8220;specialized maintenance that DoD contractors previously provided&#8221; to Afghan forces &#8220;in the form of technical knowledge and support,&#8221; the report says.
CNN also cited a Defense Department spokesman who said other equipment left behind was disabled or destroyed, although at the time of the withdrawal, there were no reports of such actions.
&#8220;The $7.12 billion figure cited in the Department&#8217;s recent report to Congress corresponds to ANDSF equipment and not U.S. military equipment used by our forces,&#8221; Army Major Rob Lodewick, a Defense Department spokesperson, said in a statement to CNN. &#8220;Nearly all equipment used by U.S. military forces in Afghanistan was either retrograded or destroyed prior to our withdrawal and is not part of the &#8216;$7.12 billion&#8217; figure cited in the report.&#8221;
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to josephcurl@dailywire.com and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.

AFGHANISTAN-CONFLICT

In Hasty Withdrawal, U.S. Left Behind $7B Of Military Gear, Including 78 Aircraft And 12,000 Humvees, In Afghanistan: Report

Afghanistan

Biden Administration

Joe Biden

U.S. Military

A group of five GOP governors sent a letter on Tuesday to challenge Department of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to end the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for National Guard members.
The <a href="https://governor.iowa.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Joint%20Governors%20Letter%20to%20SECDEF%20-%20NG%20Vaccine%20Mandate%2012.14.2021.pdf?utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=govdelivery" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> focused on the rights of personnel, arguing that the requirement is beyond the department&#8217;s constitutional authority.
&#8220;We acknowledge your right to establish readiness standards for the National Guard for activation into a Title 10 status,&#8221; the letter said.
&#8220;However, directives dictating whether training in a Title 32 status can occur, setting punishment requirements for refusing to be COVID-19 vaccinated, and requiring separation from each state National Guard if unvaccinated are beyond your constitutional and statutory authority,&#8221; it added.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, and Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts were the Republicans included as signers of the letter.
“The federal government continues to overreach further into the lives of Americans and especially those serving our country and protecting our very freedoms,” Reynolds said in a <a href="https://governor.iowa.gov/press-release/gov-reynolds%C2%A0four%C2%A0other%C2%A0governors-send-letter-to-dod-requesting-withdraw-of-vaccine" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>.
“These are the very men and women who have selflessly devoted their lives to protecting us and responding to major disasters and times of crisis at the drop of a hat to provide peace and comfort, and now the federal government is giving them an ultimatum to get the vaccine or be separated from serving their country.&#8221;
&#8220;It’s unconscionable to think the government will go so far as to strip these honorable men and women of the nation’s top duties if they don’t comply. They protect the very freedoms that the federal government apparently doesn’t believe they too deserve,” she continued.
The vaccine mandate encompasses approximately <a href="https://www.nationalguard.mil/Resources/Press-Releases/Article/2474123/25k-authorized-50-states-three-territories-and-dc-supporting-presidential-inaug/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">440,000</a> soldiers and airmen in the National Guard.
On December 2, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration to stop the vaccine requirement for National Guard members in his state.
“Therefore, unless mobilized by the President of the United States under U.S. Code Title10, I retain the authority for all training and governance of the Oklahoma National Guard – including determining if and how training guidelines issued by the president will be implemented,&#8221; Stitt said in a <a href="https://oklahoma.gov/governor/newsroom/newsroom/2021/december/governor-stitt--attorney-general-o-connor-sue-biden-administrati.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>.
“This week, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin declared his intention to proceed with unconstitutional punishment that individually targets Oklahoma National Guard soldiers and airmen, including withholding their pay,” the governor added.
The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/defense-secretary-unvaccinated-national-guard-members-cannot-train-be-paid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> on December 1:
<blockquote>Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that members of the Army National Guard who refuse to comply with the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate would be prohibited from undergoing the required training and drills they need to maintain their status as Guardsmen. 
In an internal memo to leaders of the armed forces, according to the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-lloyd-austin-41588147165feeb223ff729f1a1cb465">Associated Press</a>, Austin spelled out the new policy, directing leaders of the four service branches to publish guidance dealing with men and women serving in the National Guard who refuse the vaccine. “Vaccination is essential to the health and readiness of the force,” Austin said.
The vaccine requirement is part of the military’s medical readiness requirements, the AP reported. All members of the armed services are required to be <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pentagon-announces-vaccine-mandate-for-u-s-military">vaccinated against COVID-19</a>, unless they receive an exemption for medical or other reasons.</blockquote>
The Daily Wire is fighting Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate in federal court. Join us in this fight by <a class="in-cell-link" href="https://lp.dailywire.com/osha-petition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">signing</a> our petition to OSHA, telling them that you will not comply with this mandate.

National Guard

GOP Governors Challenge DoD To End COVID-19 Vaxx Mandate For National Guard

COVID-19

Vaccine Mandate

The U.S. Department of Defense said on Wednesday that there are likely &#8220;dozens&#8221; of family members of U.S. troops still trapped in Afghanistan following President Joe Biden&#8217;s chaotic pullout from the country back in August.
&#8220;The Defense Department is trying to compile a master list of relatives of U.S. troops who may still be in Afghanistan and wanting to leave, per a Nov. 4 memo from the Pentagon’s policy chief,&#8221; The Army Times <a href="https://www.armytimes.com/flashpoints/afghanistan/2021/11/10/dozens-of-troops-family-members-still-in-afghanistan-pentagon-estimates/">reported</a>. &#8220;The memo encourages military or civilian personnel to send a note to a DoD email address created specifically for referrals of Afghan nationals.&#8221;
At a press conference on Wednesday, a reporter asked Pentagon spokesman John Kirby to provide updates on the &#8220;number of immediate family members of U.S. service members in Afghanistan.&#8221;
&#8220;We believe it&#8217;s certainly most likely in the dozens, but one of the reasons we put the memo out last week was to encourage service members to come forward,&#8221; Kirby said, later adding, &#8220;We&#8217;re working this as hard as we can. We take the obligation seriously to our people and to their families.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="&#039;I Didn&#039;t Say That&#039;: Kirby Clashes With Reporter Over Family Members Left In Afghanistan" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WLynA4dGhBw?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED <a href="https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2840956/pentagon-press-secretary-john-f-kirby-holds-a-press-briefing/">VIA</a> THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE:
<blockquote>REPORTER: John? Afghanistan?
JOHN KIRBY, DOD SPOKESMAN: Can I get to somebody else just in case, since I already &#8212; nobody? All right, go ahead.
REPORTER: You can go.
(LAUGHTER)
KIRBY: Lucas, you&#8217;ve had, like, seven. Go ahead.
REPORTER: John, can you please update us on &#8212; on the number of immediate family members of U.S. service members in Afghanistan?
KIRBY: Update you on the number?
REPORTER: Yes.
KIRBY: I don&#8217;t have a whole number on that, no.
REPORTER: OK. So, I mean, the withdrawal ended on August 30th, and it&#8217;s &#8212; today is November 10th. I mean, how is it possible that &#8212; that the department doesn&#8217;t know how many immediate family members are still left&#8230;
KIRBY: I didn&#8217;t say&#8230;
REPORTER: &#8230; especially in Afghanistan?
KIRBY: I &#8212; I didn&#8217;t say we didn&#8217;t know; I said I don&#8217;t have a number for you. We believe it&#8217;s certainly most likely in the dozens, but one of the reasons we put the memo out last week was to encourage service members to come forward.
It&#8217;s a dynamic thing, Fadi. I mean, you make it sound like a snap on a chalk line, and boom! You&#8217;ve got to know all the &#8212; you&#8217;ve got to know every number. That&#8217;s not even true for American citizens, as other &#8212; as American citizens in Afghanistan continue to come forward, because maybe they&#8217;ve changed their mind. Maybe they didn&#8217;t want out by August 30th, and maybe now they do. And so the number has &#8212; is changed a little bit.
We&#8217;re working this as hard as we can. We take the obligation seriously to our people and to their families. And we&#8217;re &#8212; and that&#8217;s why we put the advisory out to the services last week, to give them a place, a portal where they can go to put information on &#8212; on &#8212; on there that we can then share with our State Department colleagues to get them out. We&#8217;re going to stay at this.
I&#8217;ve said it before but I think it bears repeating &#8212; the military mission in Afghanistan is over but the mission itself, to continue to &#8212; to get our people out &#8212; out of Afghanistan and back home or to their new homes in the United States, is not over, and we&#8217;re going to continue to work inside the interagency to do that.
REPORTER: I understand and appreciate all of that but my question remains &#8212; these are &#8212; these are the immediate family members of U.S. service members in Afghanistan. While many Afghans who have no relatives in the U.S. were evacuated a long time ago, the department, up until last week, did not issue a memo or considered this issue. I mean, don&#8217;t you think it&#8217;s&#8230;
KIRBY: That doesn&#8217;t mean&#8230;
REPORTER: &#8230; it&#8217;s late in the process&#8230;
KIRBY: So&#8230;
REPORTER: &#8230; you shouldn&#8217;t &#8212; don&#8217;t you think this should have been the priority to begin with?
KIRBY: It was a&#8230;
REPORTER: &#8230; talking about&#8230;
KIRBY: Fadi, let me answer your question, please.
REPORTER: No, no, I&#8217;m just &#8212; I &#8212; I&#8230;
KIRBY: I &#8212; I know that, I get it, but we did take it as a serious priority back then. We were working it. Just because there wasn&#8217;t a memo on the streets doesn&#8217;t mean that we weren&#8217;t focused on it or that we weren&#8217;t talking to people about it.
But more and more people were coming forward and wanted help for how to organize this effort, and now that the State Department has set up a &#8212; an interagency process over there, we now want to more discreetly, more carefully funnel these requests and that information to the care coordinator, as appropriate.
So it&#8217;s an ongoing process, it&#8217;s somewhat iterative, we&#8217;re getting better at it over time, and the fact that &#8212; you &#8212; you &#8212; you know, you&#8217;re &#8212; you &#8212; that we didn&#8217;t issue a memo earlier doesn&#8217;t mean that we weren&#8217;t thinking about it, weren&#8217;t focused on it, weren&#8217;t hearing from troops or concerned about family members.
I mean, I &#8212; I have to take issue, I think, with the tone of your question, which seems to be that we just didn&#8217;t care until last week, and that&#8217;s just not true.
REPORTER: Yeah, but the facts remains that we&#8217;re talking about that issue still now.
KIRBY: And you know what, Fadi? We&#8217;re probably going to be talking about that issue for some time to come, and that has to be OK. It doesn&#8217;t mean that we&#8217;re not taking it seriously. In fact, quite the contrary.
REPORTER: Are &#8212; are they &#8212; are there &#8212; is there any concern about their safety in Afghanistan?
KIRBY: Of course there is &#8212; of course there is.</blockquote>

Press conference of Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby and U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said

Biden’s Pentagon: Likely ‘Dozens’ Of U.S. Troop’s Family Members Still Trapped In Afghanistan

U.S. federal law enforcement agencies are reportedly purchasing Chinese surveillance drones despite multiple warnings from the U.S. military that they pose a threat to U.S. national security.
&#8220;The Secret Service bought eight DJI drones on July 26, according to procurement records obtained by the industry publication IPVM,&#8221; Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/federal-law-enforcement-china-drone-4b33aca2-b6f5-43d0-8d36-be1d447af1a0.html">reported</a>. &#8220;That was three days after the Defense Department released a statement saying DJI products &#8216;pose potential threats to national security.’”
Axios went on to cite records that reportedly show the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) bought 19 drones made by the same China-based company.
The U.S. military repeatedly <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-is-crazy-chinese-made-drones-are-monitoring-streets-in-20-states-to-enforce-social-distancing-u-s-officials-are-concerned-about-spying">warned</a> against using the drones during the Trump administration and continued to warn against using them during the Biden era.
&#8220;The Department of Defense (DOD) position is that systems produced by Da Jiang Innovations (DJI) pose potential threats to national security,&#8221; the Pentagon said over the summer. &#8220;Existing DOD policy and practices associated with the use of these systems by U.S. government entities and forces working with U.S. military services remain unchanged contrary to any written reports not approved for release by the DOD.&#8221;
&#8220;In 2018, DOD issued a ban on the purchase and use of all commercial off-the-shelf drones, regardless of manufacturer, due to cybersecurity concerns,&#8221; the statement later added. &#8220;The following year, Congress passed legislation specifically banning the purchase and use of drones and components manufactured in China. DOD complies with Section 848 of the FY20 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and additional guidance provided by Executive Order 13981.&#8221;
The Department of Homeland Security <a href="https://info.publicintelligence.net/ICE-DJI-China.pdf">warned</a> in 2017 that it had &#8220;moderate confidence that Chinese-based company DJI Science and Technology is providing U.S. critical infrastructure and law enforcement data to the Chinese government.&#8221;
DHS further warned it has:
<ul>
<li>&#8220;&#8230; high confidence [DJI] is selectively targeting government and privately owned entities within these sectors to expand its ability to collect and exploit sensitive U.S. data.&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;&#8230;high confidence a foreign government with access to this information could easily coordinate physical or cyber attacks against critical sites.&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;&#8230; high confidence that outside of DJI&#8217;s goal to attain law enforcement customers, DJI&#8217;s criteria for selecting accounts to target appears to focus on the account holder&#8217;s ability to disrupt critical infrastructure. As a result, DJI has amassed customers such as American Water, Union Pacific, and American Electric Power, some of the biggest utility and transportation companies in the United States.&#8221;</li>
<li>&#8220;&#8230; high confidence the critical infrastructure and law enforcement entities using DJI systems are collecting sensitive intelligence that the Chinese government could use to conduct physical or cyber attacks against the United States and its population. Alternatively, China could provide DJI information to terrorist organizations, hostile non-state entities, or state-sponsored groups to coordinate attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure. The UAS capture close-up imagery and GPS information on water systems, rail systems, hazardous material storage systems, first responders&#8217; activity, and construction of highways, bridges, and rails.&#8221;</li>
</ul>
The news comes after U.S. critical infrastructure has been repeatedly targeted in cyberattacks this year by Russian hackers, to which Democrat President Joe Biden responded by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-ignites-firestorm-over-what-he-told-putin-on-cyberattacks-one-of-the-most-pathetic-moments-in-u-s-diplomatic-history">handing</a> Russian President Vladimir Putin a list of critical infrastructure not to attack.
Rebeccah Heinrichs, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, <a href="https://twitter.com/RLHeinrichs/status/1405323292970524673">responded</a> to Biden&#8217;s move by noting: “This is essentially inviting Putin to attack literally everything else.”

Drone Flying During The Sunset

Feds Buying Chinese Drones Despite Military Warning That They Pose Threat To National Security

China

Communist China

Department of Homeland Security

Drones

John Kirby, the spokesman for the Department of Defense, refused to answer a question from a reporter on Monday about a Politico report that said that the Biden administration knew that an ISIS terrorist attack would be carried out on the airport in Kabul last week and that they had information about the approximate time and location.
&#8220;According to Politico, the U.S. knew where the attack, or roughly where the attack would take place on Thursday and when it would take place,&#8221; the reporter said. &#8220;Why were there U.S. troops at that gate, at that time?&#8221;
&#8220;What I can tell you is that we have been monitoring as close as we can intelligence that led us to believe that we were in a very dynamic and in some cases, specific threat environment, number one,&#8221; Kirby responded. &#8220;Number two, as General McKenzie said, we’re going to investigate. We’re going to get to the bottom of what happened last Thursday. 13 precious lives were lost. We’re going to take that seriously. And we’re not going to investigate it in public.&#8221;
&#8220;Number three, I am absolutely not going to speak to a press story that was informed by the unlawful disclosure of classified information and sensitive deliberations here at the Pentagon,&#8221; Kirby concluded. &#8220;Just not going to do it.&#8221;
Kirby issued a similar statement to Politico which did not dispute the accuracy of the story and only condemned the leaking of classified information.
“This story is based on the unlawful disclosure of classified information and internal deliberations of a sensitive nature,” Kirby told Politico. “As soon as we became aware of the material divulged to the reporter, we engaged Politico at the highest levels to prevent the publication of information that would put our troops and our operations at the airport at greater risk. We condemn the unlawful disclosure of classified information and oppose the publication of a story based on it while a dangerous operation is ongoing.”
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/PentagonPresSec?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@PentagonPresSec</a> John Kirby declines to comment on a <a href="https://twitter.com/politico?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@politico</a> story he says &quot;informed by the unlawful disclosure of classified information.&quot; The piece suggests officials knew when and where the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AbbeyGate?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AbbeyGate</a> attack would take place. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Afghanistan?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Afghanistan</a> <a href="https://t.co/vDHLjj1KS7">pic.twitter.com/vDHLjj1KS7</a>
&mdash; Michele Blood (@BloodBrief) <a href="https://twitter.com/BloodBrief/status/1432361341550055427?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 30, 2021</a></blockquote>
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TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>REPORTER: Thanks. I have a question and it’s difficult, but I hope you can entertain it. According to Politico, the US knew where the attack, or roughly where the attack would take place on Thursday and when it would take place, why were there US troops at that gate, at that time?
JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: Jeff, what I can tell you is that we have been monitoring as close as we can intelligence that led us to believe that we were in a very dynamic and in some cases, specific threat environment, number one. Number two, as General McKenzie said, we’re going to investigate. We’re going to get to the bottom of what happened last Thursday. 13 precious lives were lost. We’re going to take that seriously. And we’re not going to investigate it in public. Number three, I am absolutely not going to speak to a press story that was informed by the unlawful disclosure of classified information and sensitive deliberations here at the Pentagon. Just not going to do it. Yeah.</blockquote>

Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby And Army Major Gen. Hank Taylor Hold Briefing At Pentagon

WATCH: Biden Official Confronted Over Report That Admin Knew Likely Time, Place Of Terror Attack

Radical Islamic Terror

Taliban

On Thursday, Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who along with Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw had offered an avenue for members of the military to send whistleblower complaints about “woke” efforts to transform the U.S. military, revealed some blistering complaints he had received as he questioned Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
After citing numerous examples of service members disconsolate from the “woke” incidents they cited, Cotton fired off a series of questions to Austin, including, “Should a member of the organization you lead be treated differently in violation of the Constitution, I would add, based on their sex or the color of their skin?”
Austin answered, “No, I do not believe that,” but then added, “And that is why we have diversity, equity and inclusion focus in the military,” later insisting, “I would also say that diversity, equity and inclusion is important to this military now, and it will be important in the future.”
Cotton started by saying, “Mr. Secretary, I have received, along with Congressman Crenshaw, several hundred whistleblower complaints about Pentagon extremist and diversity training. I just want to share a small selection of what your troops are saying.”
He followed by citing reports of a military history training session being replaced with mandatory training on police brutality, white privilege, and systemic racism; instructions to a member of Special Operations that “The U.S. Special Operations community is racist&#8221;; a general officer telling an Army officer that &#8220;the entire U.S. Army is racist&#8221;; a midshipman at the Naval Academy attesting that classmates were calling America a “fundamentally racist place” and were not challenged by school administrators; an airman saying their unit was forced into a racist exercise called a “privilege walk&#8221;; a Space Force officer saying an African-American servicemember said after the training that she would never have joined the military had she known that it was such a hotbed of racism; and a white airman who said he didn’t sign up to be indoctrinated, then filed separation paperwork.
Full transcript below:
<blockquote>Cotton: Mr. Secretary, I have received, along with Congressman Crenshaw, several hundred whistleblower complaints about Pentagon extremist and diversity training. I just want to share a small selection of what your troops are saying. &#8230; One Marine told us that a military history training session was replaced with mandatory training on police brutality, white privilege, and systemic racism. He reported several officers are now leaving his unit, citing that training.  Another service member told us that their unit was required to read “White Fragility,” by Robin DiAngelo, which claims, and this is a quote, “People raised in Western society are condition into a white supremacist worldview.”
A member of the Special Operations community has told us that they are being instructed that “The U.S. Special Operations community is racist.” One Army officer relayed to us the word of his general officer, who told him that the entire U.S. Army is racist.
A midshipman at the Naval Academy said classmates were calling America a “fundamentally racist place” and this sentiment is not contested by school administrators.
An airman told us that their unit was forced into a racist exercise called a “privilege walk,” where members of the wing were ordered to separate themselves by race and gender in order to stratify people based on their perceived privilege.
One African American officer disparagingly said, and I quote, “The Navy thinks my only value is as a black woman” and not the fact that she is a highly-trained military specialist.
Soldiers have come forward to tell us they are being forced to watch videos about systemic racism and documentaries that rewrite American history as a fundamentally racist and evil nation. One Space Force officer told me that two guardians left his ranks in a short period of time; one was a young African-American who said that after the training that she would never have joined the military had she known that it was such a hotbed of racism. The other was a white airman who said he didn’t sign up to be indoctrinated, and filed separation paperwork.
Mr. Secretary, we’re hearing reports of plummeting morale; growing mistrust between the races and sexes where none existed just six months ago and unexpected retirements and separations based on these trainings alone. And again, these are not my words, these are the words of your own troops. So I want to ask a few simple but vital questions. Mr. Secretary, do you believe that our military is a fundamentally racist organization? Yes or no, please?
Austin: I won&#8217;t give you a yes or no answer on that, Senator, because it deserves more than a yes or no. The military, like any organization will have its challenges, but I do not believe it is a fundamentally racist organization.
Cotton: Thank you. I&#8217;m sorry. I&#8217;m sorry to cut you off. But our time is limited. I think it is a pretty simple question. I&#8217;m glad that you agree, it is not fundamentally racist. Do you believe that any member of the military should be treated differently based on their skin color and sex? Again, yes or no will do?
Austin: Again, this question deserves more than a yes or no answer.
Cotton: I’m sorry to cut you off our time is limited. It is a very simple question. Should a member of the organization you lead be treated differently in violation of the Constitution, I would add, based on their sex or the color of their skin?
Austin: No, I do not believe that. And that is why we have diversity, equity and inclusion focus in the military.
Cotton: It&#8217;s in the military for decades has been one of the institutions in the society where you are most likely to get ahead based on your own performance on your own merit, irrespective of the color of your skin or where you came from or who your parents were.
Austin: Sir, I have to agree with that. And I am an example of that you. And I would also say —
Cotton: Mr. Secretary, your career is an excellent example of that. But I have more questions based on the reports we&#8217;ve seen. The military has included the works of critical race theories on its reading list by authors like Abraham Henry Rogers, who now calls himself Ibram Kendi, and Robyn D&#8217;Angelo. Mr. Kendi has written, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” Do you agree with that proposition?
Austin: I&#8217;ve not read that. And I don&#8217;t, you know, I certainly don&#8217;t agree with what you just said. But I know, it&#8217;s always important to have a current full context of anything  that you&#8217;re being asked to evaluate.
Cotton: Mr. Secretary, do you believe that race and sex should be the key factor when selecting combat leaders, rather than say, operational excellence, technical proficiency, leadership, agility and integrity?
Austin: I do not. Senator, I think what you just said should be key components in making any selection.
Cotton: Thank you. I&#8217;m glad we agree on all this. So let me just wrap up by saying this. If troops are subjected to the kinds of trainings, drawing on critical race concepts like America, and our military is inherently racist, or certain races are inherently privileged, other races are inherently victimized, given what you&#8217;ve said, should they report it up their chain of command to the Inspector General or to other appropriate channels?
Austin: They&#8217;ve always had — Yes, they should, they&#8217;ve always had that ability to do that. And I would recommend that in the future. I would also say that diversity, equity and inclusion is important to this military now, and it will be important in the future. And so we&#8217;re going to make sure that our military looks like America, and that our our leadership looks like what&#8217;s in the ranks of the military, and I appreciate your support on that.
Cotton: And I agree with that. And like I said, the military has always been one of the most diverse institutions, our society where you can get ahead irrespective of the color of your skin, or who your parents are or where you came from. And I&#8217;m glad that we agree on that. This is not about diversity in general, though; this is about a very specific kind of anti-American indoctrination that is seeping into some parts of our military based on the whistleblower complaints we have received. Thank you. My time’s expired.</blockquote>
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Cotton: Austin

WATCH: Cotton Reveals Military Whistleblower Complaints On Woke Training, Biden’s SecDef Insists, ‘Diversity, Equity And Inclusion Is Important To This Military’

Lloyd Austin

Tom Cotton

On Friday, the Defense Department indicated that they don’t share Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s perspective on flying the LGBT pride flag, saying the Defense Department will not allow the flag to be flown at its installations to celebrate Pride month.
Defense Department spokesman John Kirby stated, &#8220;After some careful consideration the department will maintain the existing policy regarding the display&#8221; at military bases. &#8220;There won’t be an exception made for the Pride flag. This in no way reflects any lack of respect or admiration for the LGBTQ+ community. This was really more about the potential &#8230; for other challenges that could arise from that exception,” <a href="https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/biden-pentagon-state-department-at-odds-over-pride-flag">Fox News</a> reported.
In April, <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/22/pride-flag-lgbtq-rights-state-department-biden-reverse-trump-embassies/">Foreign Policy</a> noted:
<blockquote>Secretary of State Antony Blinken has issued a blanket authorization for U.S. diplomatic outposts around the world to fly the Pride flag on the same flagpole as the U.S. flag at their embassy or consulate showcasing support for LGBTQ rights. The directive marks a departure from how the Trump administration handled the matter while the State Department was run by former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
In a confidential cable reviewed by Foreign Policy and sent to diplomatic posts around the world, Blinken gave authority for diplomats to fly the Pride flag before May 17, which marks the international day against homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia, as well as June, which in the United States and many other countries is Pride month.</blockquote>
On May 25, Foreign Policy <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/25/black-lives-matter-blm-state-department-embassies-flags-blinken-diplomacy-racial-injustice/">reported</a> that Blinken gave U.S. embassies permission to fly the Black Lives Matter Flag:
<blockquote>U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has authorized U.S. embassies around the world to fly Black Lives Matter (BLM) flags and banners, according to an internal cable reviewed by Foreign Policy, as part of the administration’s response to the one-year anniversary of the police murder of George Floyd that sparked international outrage and a nationwide reckoning on systemic racism.
The U.S. State Department cable gives chiefs of missions, who head U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide, “blanket written authorization” to display BLM flags and banners as “appropriate in light of local conditions.” It stresses the directive is an “authorization, not a requirement.”</blockquote>
Fox News also noted that an internal State Department memo stated, &#8220;We encourage posts to focus on the need to eliminate systemic racism and its continued impact.”
Blinken’s decision on the BLM flag triggered commentator Candace Owens to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-candace-owens-blasts-biden-administration-letting-embassies-fly-blm-flag">charge,</a> “The U.S. embassies are celebrating black death. The consequence of the Black Lives Matter movement — and I cringe when people call it Black Lives Matter protests, because, you know what, Tucker, it is Black Lives Matter riots. The cities burned for six weeks straight following the death of George Floyd. Black neighborhoods were rioted, they were looted and it led to more black death. Way more black Americans died during the Black Lives Matter riots than the one black American that was killed by a police officer that allegedly started this entire spree.”

Gay Pride Flag At Boston City Hall

Department Of Defense: We Won’t Fly Pride Flag

Antony Blinken

Pride Flag

State Department

Speaking on a panel hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, one defense expert stated that the Biden administration had apparently decided that national defense should take a back seat to other domestic issues, asserting, “Defense is not a Biden administration priority.”
Speaking with host Mackenzie Eaglen of AEI, former Acting Undersecretary of Defense Comptroller Elaine McCusker said bluntly, “Defense is not a Biden administration priority, and there is an attempt to redesign what constitutes a national security investment, to divert defense funds to non-Corps activities.”
“Why do I say this?” she continued. “We got previews of this fact with the international security guidance earlier this year, which actually didn’t terribly focus on defense; and in early April, with the discretionary budget top-lines. For example, the OMB press release did not even mention defense.&#8221;
Citing statistics to show the direction the Biden administration was taking, she said, “And defense was the only federal function to not even keep pace with inflation. While domestic agencies went up by 16%, including a 41% increase for the Department of Education, also of note, the only federal agency to take a cut, at 10% was the Corps of Engineers.”
“This fact was further confirmed on Friday with the White House budget summary that mentions no actual military capabilities,” she pressed. “Among the investments discussed under the heading, ‘Confronting 21st Century Security Challenges’ are COVID, foreign assistance, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund, and establishing a global health security agenda, among other topics. When the summary touches briefly on the China threat and the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, it notes the importance of cybersecurity, but highlights none of the myriad investments required to compete militarily with China.”
Retired Army Major General John Ferrari pointed out that another &#8220;danger&#8221; lurked for the defense budget. Ferrari stated: “I think there’s a hidden danger in the defense budget that we really have to talk about going forward and now and that’s inflation. Inflation is the hidden danger that will eat the defense budget. Recently, the I savings bond, the inflation index savings bond, is now yielding 3.5%. If that’s in anticipation of inflation of 3.5% the Department is in a lot of trouble.”
“I was surprised the most by how the Navy and the administration walked away from what at the end of the Trump administration was a big rollout of the 500-ship autonomous Navy,&#8221; Ferrari added.
<a href="https://news.usni.org/2021/06/01/analyst-says-pentagon-walked-away-from-the-500-ship-navy">USNI</a> noted, “The Fiscal Year 2022 shipbuilding request is seeking $22.6 billion, a 3 percent drop from Fiscal Year’s 2021 shipbuilding total.”
“The Air Force is cutting 201 aircraft, including 42 A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft, 48 F-15C/D Eagle strike fighters and 47 F-16 Falcons for $1.37 billion,” USNI <a href="https://news.usni.org/2021/05/28/715b-fy22-defense-budget-cuts-2-8b-in-legacy-systems-reduces-troop-strength">pointed out</a>.
<div>
McCusker and Ferrari have stated in a paper titled, “<a href="https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/defense-budget-lessons/">Defense Budget Lessons</a>”:
</div>
<div>
<blockquote>The new Pentagon leadership should be aware of and guard against two previous failed approaches to budget reductions: seeing the world as we want to be, not how it is (i.e. the “peace dividend”), and forcing a choice between capacity and capability (I.e. the “drawdown”).  The first failed approach is to mischaracterize the near-term threat, enabling apparently riskless decisions to cut current readiness. We know this approach, previously called a peace dividend, creates only cognitive dissonance between strategy and budget. Russia, the Middle East, North Korea and an aggressive China will not sit by while we assume away near-term risk.</blockquote>
This article has been corrected to note Ferrari retired as a major general. 
</div>

President Biden Delivers Remarks On Economy

‘Defense Is Not A Biden Administration Priority’: Defense Experts Examine Biden’s Focus Shifting

Former U.S. Military officials spoke to CNN&#8217;s Chris Cuomo on Monday following a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bombshell-ufo-report-u-s-military-encounters-ufos-every-day-that-far-exceed-its-tech-capabilities">bombshell</a> report published by CBS News&#8217;s &#8220;60 Minutes&#8221; on Sunday night about UFOs that the military is encountering.
Both segments come ahead of a report that the Department of Defense is supposed to deliver to Congress next month. Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/03/23/ufo-report-covid-bill/">said</a> in a recent interview that the findings will shock people because “frankly, there are a lot more sightings than have been made public.”
Newsworthy quotes from the CNN segment:
<ul>
<li>CHRIS MELLON, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE: &#8220;&#8230; [W]e have recurring violations of U.S. airspace by unidentified vehicles. They are very capable, in some cases, more capable than anything in our own inventory. This has been going on for years. The truth is just emerging. We&#8217;ve had a massive intelligence failure. And we now have a threat, an unknown threat that we need to figure out.&#8221;</li>
<li>MELLON: &#8220;Well, we clearly are vulnerable. And this has been going on for too long. Finally, our Congress is learning of this situation. They&#8217;re beginning to react. So we&#8217;ve got a lot of catch-up here. But it is &#8211; it is very concerning. It&#8217;s not an imminent crisis or imminent threat. There&#8217;s been no hostility. But there&#8217;s a lot of activity. And it&#8217;s increasingly bold. In some instances, recently, we&#8217;ve had these things swarming around war ships off the coast of California, swarming around Strategic Missile Defense bases, in Guam, and other things. So, with all the tensions in the world, and China, and the rest, with the attack on the Saudi oil facilities, by drones, and so forth, it&#8217;s something we need to take seriously.&#8221;</li>
<li>SEAN CAHILL, U.S. NAVY CHIEF MASTER-AT-ARMS (RET): &#8220;&#8230;the &#8216;five observables&#8217; indicate a technology that outstrips our arsenal by at least 100 years to 1,000 years at the moment&#8230;first of all, the aircraft had zero control surfaces. It had no means of propulsion that we could detect. It moved at hypersonic velocities. And it preceded the pilots to their cap points. So, it seemed to have some knowledge of where the pilots were headed ahead of time. And we don&#8217;t possess those abilities to do that, in our arsenal at the moment.&#8221;</li>
<li>CAHILL: &#8220;I think that we&#8217;re going to find that this phenomenon represents a very large spectrum of different things. At edges of that spectrum are going to be near-peer technology of our adversaries, here on Earth. At the other end of that spectrum is going to be something that we don&#8217;t yet understand, and haven&#8217;t identified yet. So, I hesitate to speculate on the source. But I can tell you that I don&#8217;t believe that this is within our arsenal of any human technology at the moment.&#8221;</li>
</ul>
WATCH:
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Retired US Navy Chief explains tech witnessed in UFO aircraft sighting" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/azZ4XAZuVk4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
TRANSCRIPT PROVIDED VIA CNN:
<blockquote>CHRIS CUOMO, CNN HOST: As if Congress doesn&#8217;t have enough on its plate, not that it&#8217;s doing anything with what is on its plate, they&#8217;re now looking into UFOs or at least they&#8217;re doing something, right? Next month, Congress is expecting a report, from the Director of National Intelligence, and other agencies, on UFOs or UAPs. Now, that&#8217;s the government term for them. It stands for &#8216;Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.&#8217;
Why? Well, a retired U.S. Navy pilot came forward to say he and his crew witnessed an Unidentified Flying Object on the coast of the Atlantic several times. And he&#8217;s not the only one. Joining us now, someone who has personally witnessed sightings, retired Navy Chief Master-At-Arms, Sean Cahill, joined by Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. Thank you both. Appreciate you for joining me.
SEAN CAHILL, U.S. NAVY CHIEF MASTER-AT-ARMS (RET): Good evening, Chris.
CHRISTOPHER MELLON, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INTELLIGENCE: Pleasure, thank you.
CUOMO: All right, so let&#8217;s dispense with the obvious here. Chris? People are going to eye roll and say &#8220;Boy was Cuomo light on what to talk about tonight?&#8221; Why is this worth discussion?
MELLON: Because we have recurring violations of U.S. airspace by unidentified vehicles. They are very capable, in some cases, more capable than anything in our own inventory. This has been going on for years. The truth is just emerging. We&#8217;ve had a massive intelligence failure. And we now have a threat, an unknown threat that we need to figure out.
CUOMO: So Sean, it&#8217;s not that you&#8217;re worried about something out of a movie coming to get you. It&#8217;s about the threat, right here on Earth, and how it&#8217;s being motivated, without our knowledge and ability to counter.
CAHILL: That&#8217;s correct, Chris. In 2004, I was the Chief Master-at-Arms onboard the USS Princeton. And the technology that we witnessed with the &#8220;Tic Tac&#8221; was something that we would not have been able to defend our Forces against, at the time.
CUOMO: Help me understand that. As the uninitiated, what does that mean to us?
CAHILL: Well, through that &#8211; that means that what we &#8211; what we saw on the &#8220;Tic Tac,&#8221; and what Mr. Luis Elizondo describes as the &#8220;Five observables&#8221; indicate a technology that outstrips our arsenal by at least 100 years to 1,000 years at the moment.
CUOMO: A 100 years to 1,000 years? So, meaning like what kind of technology was at play that you were able to identify it, but know that you can&#8217;t match it?
CAHILL: Well, first of all, the aircraft had zero control surfaces. It had no means of propulsion that we could detect. It moved at hypersonic velocities. And it preceded the pilots to their cap points. So, it seemed to have some knowledge of where the pilots were headed ahead of time. And we don&#8217;t possess those abilities to do that, in our arsenal at the moment.
CUOMO: What does that sound like to you, Chris Mellon?
MELLON: Well, we clearly are vulnerable. And this has been going on for too long. Finally, our Congress is learning of this situation. They&#8217;re beginning to react. So we&#8217;ve got a lot of catch-up here. But it is &#8211; it is very concerning. It&#8217;s not an imminent crisis or imminent threat. There&#8217;s been no hostility. But there&#8217;s a lot of activity. And it&#8217;s increasingly bold. In some instances, recently, we&#8217;ve had these things swarming around war ships off the coast of California, swarming around Strategic Missile Defense bases, in Guam, and other things. So, with all the tensions in the world, and China, and the rest, with the attack on the Saudi oil facilities, by drones, and so forth, it&#8217;s something we need to take seriously.
CUOMO: You answered the question, partly there, but let&#8217;s fill it out a little bit. This is not new. People play with this. And they play to all kinds of conspiratorial thinking. But a lot of real Military, and policy people say, &#8220;Look, there are things out there that we got to keep track of that we can&#8217;t.&#8221;
But why now? What&#8217;s new in terms of the urgency, Chris? And I&#8217;ll ask you both about this.
MELLON: Sure, happy to address that. So what happened was a couple of years ago, Lue Elizondo, in the Pentagon, who was managing this activity, with almost no resources, he and I, and a few others, became aware that this was going on, at a very significant scale, on the East Coast, at the time, and our pilots were not getting any support.
The Intel community was not responding. Nobody was helping these guys out. And it wasn&#8217;t being reported up the chain. It wasn&#8217;t until that got into &#8220;The New York Times,&#8221; it got to the attention of Congress, that finally our leadership, in both branches of government, became aware this was going on. So, this has only just come to light.
CUOMO: Sean, what do you think is the likely universe of explanation that will come up, at the end of these reports, and addressing of this?
CAHILL: Chris, I think that we&#8217;re going to find that this phenomenon represents a very large spectrum of different things. At edges of that spectrum are going to be near-peer technology of our adversaries, here on Earth. At the other end of that spectrum is going to be something that we don&#8217;t yet understand, and haven&#8217;t identified yet. So, I hesitate to speculate on the source. But I can tell you that I don&#8217;t believe that this is within our arsenal of any human technology at the moment.
CUOMO: So, when you say that, it almost guarantees that not just your good looks, but that statement will get this picked up, and sent all over the internet, because there&#8217;ll be a legit Military person saying that &#8220;Maybe this is from outer space.&#8221; Do you want that to be [the message people receive]? 
CAHILL: Well, that would be taking my words out of context. What we can say is that we don&#8217;t know what this is. And it&#8217;s here. It&#8217;s going to take all of us to figure this out together.
CUOMO: And Chris, what&#8217;s your comment on that? They&#8217;ll say, &#8220;Look at the resumes of these two guys. They&#8217;re both saying that it might be from another world.&#8221;
MELLON: There&#8217;s no scientific reason or basis to doubt that possibility. That&#8217;s a hypothesis that could explain the facts. People need to be open to that. We&#8217;re spending billions looking for extra-terrestrial civilizations. We&#8217;ve got spacecraft that have already left the solar system. It&#8217;s possible somebody found us before we found them.
CUOMO: And the age-old question that I&#8217;ve been watching in movies my entire life, &#8220;If they are smart enough to come here, and have such advanced technologies, why don&#8217;t they talk to us?&#8221;
MELLON: Well, if they&#8217;re that smart, what would they have to learn from us? When you go to the zoo, do you talk to the animals?
CUOMO: And I got to tell you, Sean, right now we&#8217;re not presenting as exactly the best kind of people to be talking. We&#8217;re eating ourselves down here right now. I could understand why they&#8217;d want to keep in arm&#8217;s reach.
MELLON: The main point, Chris, is&#8211;
CAHILL: Yes, if there is&#8211;
MELLON: &#8211;all unanswered questions.
CUOMO: Go ahead, Sean. Go ahead. Last word you.
CAHILL: I was just going to say if they are as smart as we think they are, then I think we&#8217;re kind of silly, thinking that we can guess their motives.
CUOMO: Look, and for me, look, there is no &#8220;them.&#8221; I am a &#8220;facts first&#8221; kind of guy on this. I am open to everything, because there&#8217;s so much I&#8217;ve learned in life that I would never have imagined. But I do know this. I worry about the safety of men and women like you, Sean, and Chris, the people who wind up having to cross the policy line to get into practice. I worry that you&#8217;re safe. I worry that people aren&#8217;t beating us at our own game, and that we have to learn through spending blood and treasure that was unnecessary. So, any exploration, any research, any report, any hearing that helps us understand how to keep our fighting men and women safe is the only way to honor your sacrifice. So, thank you for your commitment. Thank you for having the conversation. Chris, Sean, as you learn things, or that you learn that you don&#8217;t like that it&#8217;s not being looked at the way it was supposed to, let me know. You&#8217;ve got a friend at this platform.</blockquote>

F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter Flies In Death Valley, California

Ex-Military Officers Sound Alarm On UFO Report: The Tech ‘Outstrips Our Arsenal By At Least 100 Years’

War rages again in the Middle East. Major fuel lines are disabled by shadowy groups of international hackers. Gas shortages ravage the East Coast. Inflation threatens to cripple the economy. Anarchists terrorize American cities at will. Police departments collapse. Public trust in government plummets to an all-time low. The country faces an unprecedented combination of crises all at once. 
But don’t worry. Everything is fine. The good news is that our government is run by a dementia patient, our intelligence agencies are mostly focused on promoting diversity, and the military is busy recruiting feminists to defeat the threat posed by intolerance and hate speech. On second thought, everything is not fine. We would appear to be — to use the technical phrase — totally screwed.
That brings us to the latest <a href="https://www.goarmy.com/the-calling.html">recruitment effort</a> from the Army. In a bid to top the CIA&#8217;s woke ad campaign, a new page on the Army’s website highlights the stories of “five young Americans” who “made the most important decision of their lives, for reasons as diverse as they are.” Most of the videos are basically unobjectionable, if somewhat odd. A lieutenant describes how he struggled in school, searched for his purpose in life, before deciding to pursue his lifelong goal of becoming a pilot. “It doesn’t take a genius to become an Army pilot,” he assures us. This is probably true — it doesn’t take a genius to learn almost any skill — but it still doesn’t fill you with confidence to hear the military making that kind of pitch for itself.
Another video tells the tale of a 1st Lieutenant who eventually decided to chase her dream of joining the Army after spending five years as a singer on a cruise ship. A scene at the end of the cartoon shows her staring out from the deck of a ship at sunset, singing about her soldiering dreams. I doubt that our adversaries will tremble in their boots when they see that our military recruitment ads so strongly resemble Disney princess films.
But that is all nothing compared to the profile of Corporal Emma Malonelord. She tells us about her childhood growing up in a home with two lesbian moms and her time spent marching for LGBT rights. Eventually, in college, she was inspired by her sorority sisters to pursue “her own adventure,” which is how she settled on a career in the Army, where, she says, she can “prove her inner strength” and “shatter stereotypes.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Army ad about a woman with two lesbian moms who joined the Army to “discover her inner strength” and “shatter stereotypes.”
We are the laughing stock of the world. 
 <a href="https://t.co/a69SuYiart">pic.twitter.com/a69SuYiart</a>
&mdash; Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1392528151939624967?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 12, 2021</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I am happy that Emma has found her inner strength, but do we want to promote the military as a forum of self-discovery for sorority girls? Whenever we next find ourselves in an armed conflict with a rival superpower — and we certainly will, eventually, probably sooner than later — will the military be better equipped and able to slaughter the enemy now that it has made diversity its first priority? It is quite telling that, out of all five of the soldiers featured in the video series, only one says anything about wanting to defend our nation from its enemies. National defense does not seem to be a major priority of the Department of Defense these days.
Perhaps that is not entirely fair. Credit where it is due: those entrusted to defend and secure the homeland are intent on defending and securing it from at least one physical threat: white supremacy. The Hill reports: 
<blockquote>The Biden administration&#8217;s top law enforcement officials on Wednesday pledged to dedicate their resources to combat domestic violent extremists amid questions over whether the agencies are equipped to monitor such threats in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Attorney General <a href="https://thehill.com/people/merrick-garland">Merrick Garland</a> and Homeland Security Secretary <a href="https://thehill.com/people/alejandro-mayorkas">Alejandro Mayorkas</a> appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee for a hearing on domestic extremism as Congress ramped up its scrutiny this week of the circumstances around the attack on the Capitol.
Both Garland and Mayorkas testified that white supremacist groups pose the most serious domestic national security threat in the U.S., reinforcing what analysts have long concluded about far-right organizations.</blockquote>
In other words, the greatest threat we face comes from violent extremists — but not the ones who have been rampaging through our cities, inflicting billions of dollars of damage, blocking traffic, harassing innocent people, and attacking random bystanders. Those extremists are often racially motivated themselves, but they are not the ones we should be worried about. Instead, according to the people at the highest levels of government, the racially motivated extremists that should attract our attention are the ones who aren’t doing much of anything and are almost nowhere to be seen. Black supremacists can whip up a mob of thousands and terrorize cities for weeks on end. White supremacists can’t do anything close to that, probably because they are hampered by the fact that they mostly don’t exist. This is a threat that guys like Garland have fabricated. Perhaps they really are up at night, frantically tossing and turning, screaming, “No! The white supremacists are coming!” But I doubt it. The people who invent the boogeyman don’t actually believe in it themselves. It is more that they are politically bound to this conclusion.
Whatever the motivations, we are left with the reality that the people running our government, and in charge of defending this country against enemies foreign and domestic, are either left-wing ideologues or useful pawns for left-wing ideologues. They recognize no duty more sacred and solemn than to fulfill that role and promote that ideology. They will not allow any institution — even the military — to have any priorities above and beyond the propagation of left-wing doctrine. No doubt, our enemies are watching this happen, and laughing to themselves, and licking their chops, and biding their time.
All of this is just a long way of saying, you can start a free trial of Rosetta Stone today if you want to learn Chinese. 
The views expressed in this piece are the author&#8217;s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Diversity and inclusion

WALSH: As The World Burns, Our Military Focuses On Promoting Diversity And Inclusion 

Merrick Garland

U.S. Army

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