U.S. Senate Again Rejects Call to Abolish COVID Vaccine Mandate for Teen Pages
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 21, 2023
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday for the third time introduced legislation to lift the COVID-19 vaccination requirement for young adults in the U.S. Senate Pages Program — and for the third time, the resolution failed.
The Senate Pages program, which pays young adults ages 16 and 17 to assist on the senate floor, requires applicants be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 — including all boosters.
Paul last week introduced the same resolution but it failed to pass. His first attempt, which also did not pass, was a broader resolution introduced on Sept. 7 that sought to remove COVID-19 testing, vaccination and masking requirements for pages.
A press release issued Wednesday by Paul’s office said Senate Democrats “for the third time” refused to “follow the science” and “unanimously objected” to the resolution.
According to Paul, the requirement is politically motivated, not based on science, and puts healthy American young adults at risk for vaccine-induced myocarditis.
In a senate floor speech before the vote, Rand cited numerous studies that reported an increased risk of heart inflammation with each successive COVID-19 vaccination.
Paul said:
“Why are we forcing these kids to do something that I would say is against medical advice to be a page in our program here?”
“How would you feel if your perfectly-healthy football player or band member is given the vaccine and comes home with heart inflammation?”
Risk of vaccine-related myocarditis is greater than risk of hospitalization from COVID-19
Rand pointed out that a study by epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg, Ph.D., reported the risk of myocarditis in teenage boys after receiving a second dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine was roughly 5 times greater than the risk of hospitalization from COVID-19.
“So you’re asking yourself, ‘Well, can my kid go to the hospital or get the heart inflammation?’” Paul said. Both are rare, he said, but there is a greater chance of heart inflammation.
Paul noted that among healthy children and young adults, there is a “nearly zero” risk of dying from COVID-19.
The public knows this and has “largely resisted” vaccinating their children against COVID-19, he added.
The argument that young people be vaccinated to protect more vulnerable populations does not hold up, Paul said, because “No serious scientist now argues that COVID-19 vaccines stop transmission. No one.”
He added, “Yet here we are, with Democrats saying, ‘You’re not smart enough to make your own decisions. We will make these medical choices for you.’”
‘In a free society, no one should be forced to receive an injection’
Paul called out Democrats for endorsing authoritarianism by expecting “submission” from U.S. parents. He said:
“They don’t want you to have the choice to keep your kids safe and make a decision whether or not your kid, who may well have already had COVID, needs yet another vaccine … They just want you to shut your eyes, be quiet and do as you’re told.”
Paul said the Democrats’ medical policy for citizens is to, “Shut up. Do as you’re told. Take the injection. We don’t care if your kid might get sick. We don’t care if you have a choice. We don’t care if you have any say in your kid’s medical care.”
“In a free society,” he added, “no one should be forced to receive an injection into their body that they do not wish to have.”
Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication. She has taught at various academic institutions in the United States and is fluent in Spanish.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
US Intel Insiders Admit Ukraine Counteroffensive is Lost — Seymour Hersh
By James Tweedie – Sputnik – 22.09.2023
While the Biden administration continues to throw good money after bad and pour arms into Ukraine, analysts in Washington’s security agencies are increasingly skeptical that it will achieve any kind of victory.
A US intelligence official has told veteran journalist Seymour Hersh that the proxy conflict with Russia in Ukraine is a lost cause.
The award-winning investigative reporter wrote on his blog that “significant elements in the American intelligence community” assess that the “demoralized Ukraine Army has given up on the possibility of overcoming the heavily mined three-tier Russian defense lines.”
One anonymous official said the fighting only continues “because Zelensky insists that it must.”
“There is no discussion in his headquarters or in the Biden White House of a ceasefire and no interest in talks that could lead to an end to the slaughter,” Hersh wrote.
Kiev and Washington claim Ukraine’s NATO-armed and trained forces are making steady progress. But almost four months after the launch of the offensive on June 4, they have advanced only a few kilometers on two narrow axes, capturing a handful of abandoned and ruined villages — at the cost of more than 71,000 casualties and hundreds of tanks and artillery guns.
“It’s all lies,” the source said. “There were some early Ukrainian penetrations in the opening days of the June offensive, and the Russians retreated to sucker them in. And they all got killed.”
He revealed that “major elements” of Kiev’s forces had “virtually canceled the offensive” — an assessment borne out by a recent fall in Russian Ministry of Defense reports of casualties inflicted on Ukrainian assault groups on the main southern fronts around Rabotino in Zaporozhye and south of Vremevka in Donetsk.
The intelligence agent said US President Joe Biden had been foolish to arm Ukraine and lay the ground for the conflict, knowing that Russian President Vladimir Putin would be forced to respond militarily.
“The war is over. Russia has won. There is no Ukrainian offensive anymore, but the White House and the American media have to keep the lie going,” the official told Hersh. “The truth is if the Ukrainian Army is ordered to continue the offensive, the army would mutiny. The soldiers aren’t willing to die anymore, but this doesn’t fit the B.S. that is being authored by the Biden White House.”
Nagorno-Karabakh and the failure of Armenia’s ‘colour revolution’
By Paul Robinson | Canadian Dimension | September 22, 2023
Thursday was Armenia’s independence day. This year, however, there was very little for Armenians to celebrate. Just one day earlier, the authorities of the region of Nagorno-Karabakh had in effect capitulated to Azerbaijan following a brief offensive by the Azerbaijani armed forces. The future of the region’s predominantly Armenian population remains uncertain, but the province’s complete integration into Azerbaijan is now inevitable and dreams of an Armenian Karabakh seem to be permanently shattered.
Despite its Armenian population, Nagorno-Karabakh became part of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic as a result of a decision by the Soviet government in the early 1920s following the Bolshevik conquest of the Caucasus. Armenians, however, never reconciled themselves to this decision and when the Soviet Union began to unravel in the late 1980s, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh lobbied for their territory to be transferred to the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. After the dissolution of the USSR, newly independent Armenia and Azerbaijan fought what became known as the First Karabakh War, which resulted in an Armenian victory. Nagorno-Karabakh became de facto independent, while Armenia gained control of a swathe of Azerbaijani territory around it.
Subsequent diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan failed. Azerbaijan bided its time, built up its armed forces, and in 2020 launched the Second Karabakh War, recapturing part of Nagorno-Karabakh. Poised to recapture the rest, the Azerbaijanis halted their offensive after the Russian Federation brokered a ceasefire which saw the Armenians hand back the Azerbaijani territory around Nagorno-Karabakh. This kept what remained of the latter out of Azerbaijani control but dependent on a narrow corridor through Azerbaijani territory protected by Russian peacekeepers.
In this way, the Russians saved Nagorno-Karabakh from complete conquest. This did not, however, earn them much gratitude from Armenia’s Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who had come to power in 2018 as a result of what has been called a “colourless colour revolution.” Since the 2020 war, Pashinyan’s relations with Russia have gone from bad to worse, and following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Pashinyan and his government have sought to reduce their dependence on Moscow, hinting that they would leave the Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which both Armenia and Russia are members, and more recently announcing the holding of joint military exercises with the United States. Last year Pashinyan also caused a stir by seeming to recognize Azeri sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan has now stepped in to exploit the situation, launching an attack on Nagorno-Karabakh that after just one day of fighting forced the Karabakh authorities to agree to completely disarm. The region’s reintegration into Azerbaijan is now bound to follow. Artin DerSimonian of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft comments that Azerbaijan’s actions are a direct consequence of the fact that “the Russian army is pinned down in Ukraine” as well as of “Prime Minister Pashinyan’s unwillingness to directly engage Armenian forces in this fight.” Azerbaijan’s victory seems complete.
Pashinyan and his followers are attempting to blame Russia for this debacle, claiming that Moscow allowed Azerbaijan to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh in order to discredit Pashinyan, remove him from power, and install a pro-Moscow Armenian government. The thesis is an odd one. There is, after all, no good reason why Russia should fight Azerbaijan when the Armenian government itself has proven unwilling to do so. Absurdity has, however, never stopped people believing conspiracy theories, and this one may help Pashinyan deflect blame to some degree. Whether it helps him enough, though, remains to be seen.
For while some Armenians may blame Russia, many others point the finger at Pashinyan himself. Dr Pietro Shakarian, a postdoctoral fellow at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg, argues that “Pashinyan’s premiership has been a disaster for the Armenian people.” Until recently, says Shakarian, “Pashinyan was able to cling to power by relying on an array of manipulative populist tactics. However… his recent recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan became widely viewed among Armenians as an unambiguous act of betrayal. … Today he is almost universally disliked in the country.”
Pashinyan came to power on the back of a wave of protests against the corruption of what was called the “Karabakh clan,” a group of Armenian politicians who originated from Nagorno-Karabakh and who had run Armenia for many years. These included Presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan. According to Dr. Benyamin Poghosyan, Chairman of the Centre for Political and Economic Strategic Studies in Yerevan, “hatred towards the ‘Karabakh clan’ started to be projected on Karabakh as a whole.” Consequently, many Armenians were reluctant to fight to defend it.
Beyond that, Pashinyan gave the impression of wanting to rid Armenia of the problem of Karabakh, viewing it as an impediment to his desire to turn Armenia politically westwards. Poghosyan notes that Pashinyan’s “primary goal is to normalize relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey, which will decrease the dependence on Russia and bring Armenia closer to the West. From this perspective, Nagorno-Karabakh was more a liability than an asset.” Pashinyan’s detractors, therefore, accuse him of betraying the people of Karabakh in pursuit of his broader pro-Western and anti-Russian political ambitions.
Dr. Shakarian comments that the loss of Karabakh puts into question “Russia’s whole position in the Caucasus.” “Many Western war hawks understand this,” and will seek to exploit it, he says. By contrast, Dr. Poghosyan is somewhat more ambiguous about the likely geopolitical consequences, arguing that it is harder for Armenia to turn westwards in practice than it is in theory. According to Poghosyan, “The only way for Armenia to move out of the Russian orbit and move towards the West is to accept some protection from Turkey and, in a midterm perspective, replace Russia with Turkey as a primary economic and security partner of Armenia. It will result in at least de facto Turkish and Azerbaijani control over the southern part of Armenia. … Will Pashinyan go for that? No clear answer exists.”
Equally unclear is Pashinyan’s political fate. Both Poghosyan and Shakarian express some doubt that the protestors who have now come out to demand Pashinyan’s resignation will be able to sustain their protests for long. Pashinyan himself, meanwhile, is insisting that he will remain in power. What is clear, though, is that like so many other so-called colour revolutions, the Armenian revolution of 2018 has not ended well.
Paul Robinson is a professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. He is the author of numerous works on Russian and Soviet history, including Russian Conservatism, published by Northern Illinois University Press in 2019.
Senior Israel delegation visits Azerbaijan 2 days before clashes in Karabakh
MEMO | September 21, 2023
Director General of Israeli Defence Ministry, Eyal Zamir, visited Azerbaijan two days before clashes erupted with Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, Israeli media reported on Wednesday.
Members of the Israeli delegation met with their Azeri counterparts, including Defence Minister, Zakir Hasanov, The Times of Israel said, pointing out that the visit came amid stepped-up Israeli arms supplies to Azerbaijan.
At least 32 people had been killed in the region before the clashes stopped. Azerbaijan described its attacks as an “anti-terrorist operation”.
It said it would continue until the separatist government of Nagorno-Karabakh dismantles itself and “illegal Armenian military formations” surrender.
On Wednesday, the two sides announced a ceasefire.
Israel is expanding bilateral ties with Azerbaijan. In March, Azeri Foreign Minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, opened Baku’s first-ever embassy in Israel.
Israel is one of Azerbaijan’s leading arms suppliers. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Israel provided 69 per cent of Baku’s major arms imports in 2016-2020, accounting for 17 per cent of Israel’s arms exports over that period.
During the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Israel stepped up its weapons shipments to Azerbaijan, which emerged victorious in that war with Armenia.
Israel gets benefits from its relations with Azerbaijan through its location on Iran’s northern border and the fact that Israel buys over 30 per cent of its oil from Baku.
Biden’s 2024 Campaign Will Continue Flagging “Misinformation” To Big Tech
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | September 21, 2023
The Biden regime’s practice of flagging content for censorship and pressuring platforms to remove content that it deems to be “misinformation” is so pervasive that it’s the subject of a major censorship lawsuit where an appeals court recently ruled that the Biden admin violated the First Amendment when pushing for social media censorship.
Despite this ruling, Joe Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign plans to continue flagging so-called misinformation to social media platforms, “reaching out” to social media companies, and working with media outlets to “fact-check untruths.”
Additionally, it may target “deepfakes” in states with laws against the technology and use “applicable copyright laws.”
According to POLITICO, Biden’s campaign will hire hundreds of staffers and volunteers to monitor online platforms as part of this effort.
Not only is Biden’s campaign planning to continue engaging in actions similar to those that were flagged by an appeals court for violating the First Amendment, but one of the leaders of the Biden campaign’s effort will be Rob Flaherty, a former White House Digital Director who is a defendant in the First Amendment lawsuit that the appeals court ruled on.
Flaherty is currently a deputy campaign manager for Biden’s 2024 campaign.
Documents that were uncovered as part of the censorship lawsuit against the Biden admin revealed that Flaherty was one of the Biden White House’s most aggressive censorship proponents.
Flaherty demanded that Facebook censor then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Fox News and Outkick host Tomi Lahren. He also pressured Facebook to suppress The Daily Wire and the New York Post while boosting The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Additionally, he pushed for the censorship of “borderline content” (a term that Facebook uses to describe content that doesn’t violate the rules but could result in “vaccine hesitancy”) and “coded language.” If Facebook employees didn’t censor to his liking, Flaherty would berate them.
POLITICO notes that “Biden has continued to back Flaherty as his social media attack dog,” despite the ongoing lawsuit and an investigation into Big Tech-federal government censorship collusion led by Jim Jordan.
Flaherty told POLITICO that “the campaign is going to have to be more aggressive pushing back on misinformation from a communications perspective and filling some of the gaps these companies are leaving behind.”
The Biden campaign plans to focus its misinformation targeting efforts on leading Republican candidates, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ “Covid anti-vaccine rhetoric.”
As Biden’s 2024 campaign doubles down on pressuring social media platforms to censor, the Supreme Court is considering whether to hear the censorship lawsuit that accuses the Biden White House of violating the First Amendment.
The Biden campaign’s admission that it will be flagging so-called misinformation in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election follows a major censorship controversy that erupted in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election.
Just three weeks before the 2020 election, a bombshell story alleging that Joe Biden was involved in a corruption scandal was censored by Big Tech platforms.
51 former intelligence officials subsequently signed a letter suggesting the story was part of a Russian “disinformation” campaign and the Biden campaign used this talking point to downplay the story, despite the laptop being real. The FBI also warned Facebook about a “dump” of “Russian disinfo” just before the Hunter Biden laptop story broke.
79% of Americans believe “truthful” coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election.
DHS still withholding information in its efforts to censor “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation”
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | September 22, 2023
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is continuing to hold back information about its efforts to police online speech in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
The Americans For Prosperity (AFP) Foundation, a political advocacy group, has spent years attempting to get the DHS to hand over records on its efforts to censor “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.” However, the DHS has responded by heavily redacting any records it turns over to the group.
The DHS is citing FOIA Exemption 7(E), which protects “techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions,” to justify the redactions.
Kevin Schmidt, the Director of Investigations at AFP, blasted the DHS for obfuscating the contents of the documents.
“If DHS believes it has the authority to police people’s online speech, it should be open with the public about what those authorities are,” he said.
He added that the DHS’s use of FOIA Exemption 7(E) “suggests the DHS is either overstating its authorities or it’s abusing FOIA exemptions to avoid transparency.”
Despite the heavy redactions, the documents do show the DHS arguing it has the authority to target “MDM” — its acronym for misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.
Another document shows that the DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board had a “Ukraine MDM Playbook” before it was shut down.
The AFP Foundation isn’t the only entity that’s struggled to get the DHS to hand over information on its speech policing activities. It has previously stonewalled Congress’s attempts to get details on the DHS’s “anti-disinformation” practices.
Additionally, the DHS has been accused of attempting to avoid transparency by using channels such as Slack and personal cellphones to hold meetings about its misinformation efforts.
Canada Launches UN Declaration Pledging Restrictions On Online “Disinformation”
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | September 22, 2023
A “global” declaration – that only manages to garner the support of 27 out of 193 UN member countries. How dreadfully humiliating – some might say.
But rest assured, Canada’s government will find a way to spin this abysmal result of its effort to use this year’s (likely, as ever, a waste of time and taxpayer money) UN General Assembly gathering in NYC to push some of its own agenda – or the agenda it’s tasked to push.
First, what is this yet another “global declaration” – and why has it failed so spectacularly? (The answer may in fact be the same.)
According to an announcement by the Canadian government, cited by the press, the purpose of the “global” declaration is to combat “disinformation.”
“Global Declaration on Information Integrity Online,” is what it’s called, and besides the “trusty” Canadians, the Dutch were also seemingly randomly thrown (an EU country, one or the other) into drafting it.
And look who was readily on the side, to sign it: the US, the UK, Germany, Australia, Japan, Korea, etc.
There are (not many, though) more countries here, but their alignment on “issues” was never in question; and now, instead of a UN General Assembly as a place of the meeting of the minds and meaningful discussions, we have it as a showdown for a world aligning into different, this time huge and truly global blocs, to showcase their different allegiances.
How dreadful – for world peace, going forward.
Meanwhile – what does the Canadian document that only managed a meager backing at the UN have in mind?
It’s “necessary and appropriate measures, including legislation, to address information integrity and platform governance.”
If any of us tried to make the Canadian proposal more ludicrously broad-worded than this is, I’m sure we’d not succeed. But there is an attempt to narrow the “declaration” down. If suitable, “we” go back to “international human rights law.”
So – those who sign the document will do so in a way that complies “with international human rights law.” (?)
Problem: a number of full-fledged UN members are saying, the very UN founding Charter really any longer means anything – having been broken by the likes of Canada, time and time again.
There’s other usual declarative tosh as you might see from these governments’ daily briefings – the only time they ever try to narrow down or clearly define any of the “definitions” is when they mention the tech they’d like to better control – such as ChatGTP.
Israel undercover forces kill Palestinian child after he discovers operation in Jenin
MEMO | September 21, 2023
Undercover Israeli Special Forces killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy when he saw them sneaking into the Jenin refugee camp during an operation, making it the latest arbitrary execution of a Palestinian by Occupation forces this year.
In a report yesterday by Defence for Children Palestine (DCIP), the Palestinian sector of Geneva-based Defence for Children International (DCI), Rafat Omar Ahmad Khamayseh left his grandfather’s house in the northern West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp on Tuesday this week, when he then “saw Israeli Special Forces exiting three Palestinian licensed cars and surround the home of the father of a Palestinian man wanted for arrest.”
The report stated that “Rafat fled, yelling, ‘Special Forces! Special Forces!’ One Israeli soldier chased Rafat and shot him in the abdomen from a distance of 10 meters”.
The Occupation forces then shot at the boy again, as a Palestinian man came to his aid and “threw himself on top of Rafat and rolled him toward his house, less than five meters away. The man and his family sheltered Rafat for about an hour and a half as the Israeli military prevented ambulances from accessing Jenin refugee camp.”
The boy was reported to have been “struck with one bullet that entered his abdomen and exited from the upper right side of his chest … He bled extensively from his mouth and nose while waiting for an ambulance.” The DCIP stated that “Rafat died before an ambulance transferred him to Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin.”
Khamayseh’s murder is the latest killing of a Palestinian – especially a minor – by Israeli forces or settlers this year, with at least 240 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip having reportedly been killed since the beginning of 2023, including 46 children.
The human rights group acknowledged the killing of Palestinian minors as a common practice by Occupation forces, stating in its report that “Investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or wilful killings”.
China and Syria forge ‘strategic partnership’ – leaders
RT | September 22, 2023
Beijing and Damascus announced a new “strategic partnership” during Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ongoing visit to China. President Xi Jinping met him in the city of Hangzhou before this week’s launch of the Asian Games, a high-profile international sports event.
Assad is visiting China for the first time since 2004, when he met then-President Hu Jintao. Xi announced the new agreement as he welcomed his guest in the capital of Zhejiang Province on Friday.
The Chinese leader stated that the relationship between the two nations has “withstood the test of international changes” and pledged to maintain them in the face of international “instability and uncertainty.”
The US and its allies have been seeking to oust Assad for over a decade, accusing him of various transgressions during an armed conflict in the country. The bloodshed started in 2011 as mass protests surged against the Syrian government but were soon hijacked by international jihadist organizations. These elements sidelined other anti-government forces, which Western nations touted as “moderate rebels,” as the main threat to Damascus.
Russian intervention in 2015 turned the tide and helped the Syrian Army oust Islamist militants from most of the country. Some portions, where Turkish and American troops or their local allies are present, remain outside Damascus’ control.
The US has imposed crippling unilateral sanctions on Syria, which hamper its ability to reconstruct after this brutal conflict. Xi expressed support for Assad’s efforts to rebuild the nation, keep terrorists in check, and seek a political settlement for the Syrian people.
The Arab League readmitted Syria in May as Damascus seeks to normalize relations with its neighbors. Beijing had facilitated the restoration of diplomatic relations between regional rivals, Iran and Saudi Arabia, in June. Both nations played significant roles in the Syrian crisis, the former supporting Assad’s government and the latter initially vying for his ouster.
The Syrian president and First Lady Asma Assad arrived in Hangzhou on Thursday. On Saturday, the visiting dignitaries are set to attend the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games alongside a dozen other foreign guests.
Almost Half of US’ F-35 Fleet Not Capable of Flying at Any Time – Watchdog
Sputnik – 22.09.2023
WASHINGTON – Almost half the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters that are supposed to be operational are not capable of flying and it will cost $1.3 trillion to keep them operational, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report.
“The F-35 fleet mission capable rate – the percentage of time the aircraft can perform one of its tasked missions – was about 55% in March 2023, far below program goals,” the report said on Thursday.
The GAO called this level of operational readiness “unacceptably low.”
“The program was behind schedule in establishing depot maintenance activities to conduct repairs. As a result, component repair times remained slow with over 10,000 waiting to be repaired – above desired levels,” the report said.
Organizational-level maintenance has also been affected by a lack of technical data and training, the report added.
It will cost $1.3 trillion to keep the full F-35 fleet operational and flying even if or when all the repair and maintenance bottlenecks, as well as ongoing development problems with the aircraft’s cannon, ejector seat, software and hardware are fixed, the report said.
However, despite the downfalls associated with the F-35 program, the report also determined that the Biden administration and the Department of Defense remain committed to a $1.7 trillion expenditure on buying a total of 2,500 F-35s for the US armed forces.
“In the coming decades, the Department of Defense plans to spend an estimated $1.7 trillion on nearly 2,500 F-35s,” the report stated, acknowledging that the majority of the funds will go to operating, maintaining, and repairing the aircraft.
The F-35 aircraft now represents a growing portion of the Defense Department’s tactical aviation fleet with about 450 of the aircraft fielded, the GAO said.
From the start of the F-35 program, officials have dealt with a variety of major setbacks with the fleet, ranging from costly fixes to sensitivities with overheating and lightning strikes.
More recently, the program made global headline news after a US Marine Corps F-35B crashed in South Carolina and sent authorities on a hunt after being unable to track the fighter once its pilot safely ejected.
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Lies are Unbekoming | May 12, 2016
I’ve been following Jennifer Bilek’s reporting on the Transgender Agenda for the last year.
In my opinion, she is doing the best investigative journalism, in the world, on the top-down nature of this society deforming “input” and “normalization”.
What we don’t understand is the scale of money behind this push, and the individuals controlling this weaponized capital. These are questions that go to the heart of Jennifer’s work. … continue
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