Tag: The Pentagon

After the Trump administration asked the supreme court to issue an unusually quick ruling on the Pentagon’s policy of restricting military service by transgender people, critics said the request was likely only to complicate a deteriorating relationship between the president and the federal judiciary. The Trump administration is “forcing [the court] into a minefield that many justices would almost surely prefer to avoid”, Matz said. Administration officials also asked the high court to stop a trial in a climate change lawsuit and to intervene in a lawsuit over the administration’s decision to add a question on citizenship to the 2020 census. The supreme court almost always waits to get involved in a case until both a trial and appeals court have ruled. One famous past example is when the Nixon administration went to court to try to prohibit the publication of the Pentagon Papers, the secret history of US involvement in the Vietnam war. The appeals court has since ruled but the administration’s request that the court hear the case stands. Trump dismisses Roberts rebuke and blames judges for 'bedlam and chaos' Read more In the military case, the administration argued that the supreme court should step in before an appeals court rules because the case “involves an issue of imperative public importance: the authority of the US military to determine who may serve in the Nation’s armed forces”. Trump revisited that policy, the president issuing an order banning most transgender troops from serving except under limited circumstances. Still ongoing in lower courts are the census and climate change cases. The court will hear arguments in the census question case in February.

Suddenly, it was clear that the United States was under attack. A country whose continental states had not seen a major attack in nearly 200 years was stunned to find that its financial and military centres had been hit by a small terrorist group based thousands of miles away. Its most lasting and consequential effects are interlinked: a massively expensive and unending “war on terror”, heightened suspicion of government and the media in many democratic countries, a sharp uptick in Western antagonism toward Muslims, and the decline of US power alongside rising international disorder – developments that aided the rise of Donald Trump and leaders like him. Just weeks after 9/11, the administration of US President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan with the aim of destroying al Qaeda, which had been granted safe haven by the extremist Taliban regime. It is now the longest war the United States has fought. In many parts of the world, the war fuelled anti-Americanism; in Europe, public opinion about the war set in motion a widening estrangement between the United States and its key European allies. Monetary and social costs Today, the United States spends US$32 million every hour on the wars fought since 9/11. In the United States and in other countries, citizens are increasingly suspicious of government sources and the media — at times even questioning whether truth is knowable. The consequences for democracy are dire. Instead, it is countries with large Muslim populations that have seen a rise in terrorist attacks.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Hours after the Pentagon announced that it would postpone a military parade that Donald J. Trump had requested, Vice-President Mike Pence staged a one-man parade in Trump’s honor. Explaining his decision to mount the solitary parade, Pence told reporters, “It is the least I can do to pay tribute to the greatness and majesty of Donald Trump, a true American hero.” Pence acknowledged, however, that marching alone “was a neat way to keep the budget down.” “Obviously, if money were no object, I would have gone for a little more spectacle,” he said. “Maybe a flyover by Space Force.” Marching proudly with his chest thrust forward and breaking out into a near-strut, Pence’s parade route took him down Pennsylvania Avenue, where he waved occasionally to confused-looking passersby. “It was weird seeing him walking all by himself,” Carol Foyler, a tourist who witnessed the Pence parade, said. “I waved back because it was just so sad.” Pence’s one-man march drew high praise from Trump, who took to Twitter to declare it the largest parade in history.

The Trump Administration outlined a plan to make a “Space Force” the sixth branch of the U.S. military Thursday, but there are still significant hurdles before it could become a reality. “The time has come to establish the United States Space Force.” “Space Force all the way!” Donald Trump tweeted shortly after Pence spoke. This would be the first new branch since the Air Force was established in 1947 after World War II. Pence also announced their intent to set up a new combatant command. He also argued that the U.S. military must match that activity to defend American interests in space. And in the realm of outer space, the United States Space Force will be that strength in the years ahead.” A 15-page Pentagon report released shortly after Pence spoke explained that the Department of Defense would “usher in a new age of space technology” and “deter, and if necessary degrade, deny, disrupt, destroy, and manipulate adversary capabilities to protect U.S. interests, assets, and way of life.” The U.S. military is not new to the space game. The Pentagon currently has more than 100 satellites in total, including 31 GPS satellites that much of the world depends on. Congress representatives Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Jim Cooper (D-TN), respectively Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, said in a joint statement, “We have been warning for years of the need to protect our space assets and to develop more capable space systems. President Trump first called for a space defense operation in May. We’ll call it the space force,” he said.

Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday announced the first steps in the Trump administration's bid to establish a standalone military Space Force by 2020, including creating an elite group of space troops in the same vein as current special operations forces. Pence said the administration is already working with leaders in Congress to include funding in next year's budget to stand up the new Space Force, but some advocacy groups are already calling the plan "a waste of money." "We are going to have the Air Force, and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal," Trump said at the meeting. In his introduction of Pence, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis also backed the proposal, saying the Pentagon has "got to adapt to that reality" that space is a warfighting domain just like air, land and sea. Except we already have the Air Force Space Command, while the Navy and the Army also already have their own space-related operations. He echoed concerns aired by others, including a former secretary of the Air Force. Congress debated creating a Space Corps within the Air Force, like the Marine Corps is a component of the Navy, as part of the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act H.R. "I strongly urge Congress to reconsider the proposal of a separate service Space Corps. 5515 (115), which the president is expected to sign next week, creates a space command under U.S. Strategic Command, but does not mention a standalone space service. Congress, which has the constitutional authority to "raise and support Armies," will have the final say on whether the Space Force as envisioned by Trump becomes reality.

Written by Madeleine Carlisle (@maddiecarlisle2), Olivia Paschal (@oliviacpaschal), and Elaine Godfrey (@elainejgodfrey) Today in 5 Lines In a speech at the Pentagon, Vice President Mike Pence detailed the administration’s plan to establish a Space Force by 2020. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s lead over Governor Jeff Colyers in the state’s gubernatorial primary was cut nearly in half after officials discovered an error in the vote count. The Puerto Rican government acknowledged in a report filed to Congress that Hurricane Maria killed more than 1,400 people, far more than the official count of 64. President Trump held a roundtable on prison reform with governors, state attorneys general, and Cabinet officials at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. In day eight of Paul Manafort's trial, prosecutors returned to his bank-fraud charges, questioning witnesses about discrepancies in his mortgage applications. Today on The Atlantic Rules for Life? : Caitlin Flanagan writes about Jordan Peterson’s popularity, and why it worries many activists on the left. (Vauhini Vara) A Speedy Trial: Here’s why Paul Manafort’s trial is moving so quickly. (High Country News) ‘I Will Fight Back’: In 2016, Rashida Tlaib was thrown out of a Trump rally. (Catie Edmondson and Jaclyn Peiser, The New York Times) The Union Establishment: In elections across the country, trade unions are backing establishment candidates instead of their more progressive counterparts.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Making a major announcement at the Pentagon on Thursday, Vice-President Mike Pence said that the proposed United States Space Force was necessary to defend the U.S. from gay aliens. “I stand before you today to say that this country is under attack from outer-space gays,” Pence told the military gathering. “Only Space Force can protect us from their unimaginable evil.” Pence detailed a nightmare scenario in which “gay aliens by the thousands” land in the U.S. in “seemingly cute spacecraft” and “subvert life in America as we know it.” “Let’s say, for example, that these gay aliens can assume human form,” he said. “What’s to stop them from infiltrating normal bakeries and baking cakes for gay weddings?” “I’ll tell you what’s to stop them,” he said, pausing for dramatic effect. “Space Force.” At the White House, CNN’s Jim Acosta asked the press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, how, exactly, Pence had developed his theory about the existence of gay aliens. “No one is more qualified to talk about life on other planets than Mike Pence,” Sanders snapped.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The Pentagon has turned down Donald J. Trump’s request for a grand military parade in Washington, D.C., citing a sudden outbreak of bone spurs that would prevent men and women in uniform from participating. Harland Dorrinson, a Pentagon spokesman, said that, within an hour of Trump’s request, more than a hundred thousand military personnel complained that they were suffering from acute cases of bone spurs that would make marching in such a parade a painful ordeal. “In the history of the U.S. military, we have never experienced a bone-spur epidemic of this magnitude,” the spokesman said. “Regrettably, however, we have no choice but to issue thousands of deferments.” A statement from the bone-spur sufferers said that they would continue to valiantly serve their country around the world in a non-marching capacity, and offered an alternative to their participation in Trump’s proposed pageant. “President Trump is welcome to march in the parade all by himself if he would finally like to enlist,” the statement read.