- Air Force to buy up to 1,000 missiles for B-52, B-21 planes
- Award comes as Pentagon starts new Nuclear Posture Review
Saturday, July 03, 2021
Modernizing The Military: The Nuclear Triad Gets Go Ahead with New $2B Contract
Missiles and more missiles to deliver nuclear weapons by air, land and sea. In its latest review of long-term triad costs, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in May that if carried out, the Pentagon and Energy Department’s nuclear forces plans would cost a total of $634 billion through 2030. The Air Force declined to release the new cruise missile’s development and procurement cost estimates.
Raytheon Awarded $2 Billion Contract for Nuclear Cruise Missile
By Anthony Capaccio
" Raytheon Technologies Corp. was awarded a contract worth as much as $2 billion to develop a new nuclear cruise missile, the first major Biden administration move to field replacements to America’s aging nuclear arsenal, the Pentagon said Thursday.
The Air Force plans to buy up to 1,000 Long-Range Standoff Weapons to replace the Air Launched Cruise Missile first fielded in 1982. The new weapon, if fielded, would be carried on B-52 and B-21 bombers.
The next-generation cornerstones of the so-called nuclear triad are the Navy’s Columbia-class submarine, the Air Force’s new ICBM known as the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent and an upgraded nuclear command and control infrastructure.
Work on the new cruise missile will be performed in Tucson, Arizona, and is expected to be completed in early 2027. It will form the basis of a production decision later that year, the Air Force said Thursday. The missile would be paired up with a new W80-4 warhead under development by the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration. The W80-4 will be the first warhead designed for use with a new missile since nuclear testing ended in 1992. The integration and certification must be accomplished without additional explosive nuclear testing
. . .The contract award was made even as the Pentagon launches a new Nuclear Posture Review, which could revive debate about America’s nuclear strategy, the types of weapons that should be procured and their costs.
. . .The Government Accountability Office warned last year that the National Nuclear Security Administration was sticking to a September 2025 first delivery date for the W80-4 warhead in spite of program risks. NNSA, which manages the development of U.S. nuclear weapons, did a credible job developing the program’s cost estimate but “has introduced potential risk” by adopting “an unrealistic” first delivery date “that is more than 1 year earlier than the date projected by the program’s own schedule risk analysis,” GAO said.
Friday, July 02, 2021
Trump Deja Vu Season 6: Running-The-Tables To Turn Over The State's Elections Laws
Law-and-Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Free-and-Fair Elections
"In June, 200 prominent American scholars of democracy signed a letter warning that changes to state laws are “transforming several states into political systems that no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections”. Another longtime student of American democracy, the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, said in January that if an election could be overturned by fact-free allegations from the losing side, “Our democracy would enter a death spiral.”
Yet that is just what his party is facilitating.
The real risk to America’s democracy
Elections
HAVING CAMPAIGNED for the presidency on a promise to rejuvenate democracy around the world, Joe Biden finds himself in a battle to defend it at home. . . For Democrats the threat to elections is about who can cast votes.
They decry changes to laws on identification, postal ballots and so on, which they call “the new Jim Crow". Instead the real threat comes after votes have been cast.
> In Arizona, for example, the legislature wants to limit the independence of the chief elections officer; a state representative introduced a law letting the legislature overturn the results of a presidential election, and then started campaigning to oversee elections herself.
> In Georgia the state legislature can now replace the leadership of county election boards.
> Texas is considering a bill that makes it easier to prosecute election officials. Across the country, the officials who administer elections in states where Republicans hold sway have been attacked for upholding the election results. Many are at risk of being replaced.
These might seem like distant, bureaucratic changes. In fact they raise the chances of a contested election that the courts cannot sort out. They weaken America’s voting system in ways that will outlast the hysteria over the 2020 result.
Trump may or may not run again. By contrast, the changes to state election machinery being made by Republican legislators will be in place in 2024 and beyond for a candidate of either party to exploit. The greater risk is that the chaos following the 2020 election becomes normal.
The silent non-Trump faction of the Republican Party may hope that all this will blow over and that those sounding the alarm about democracy are exaggerating. They may believe they can play a greater role in safeguarding America so long as they stay on good terms with their base.
Yet that logic has proved faulty since Mr Trump’s inauguration in 2016
Shameless Show-Men: GOP "Govs Gone Wild"
HHH
ENTERTAINMENT
GOP’s Most Shameless ‘Govs Gone Wild’ Exposed In Spoof
“The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” details the “extreme a**holishness” of Republican governors in its parody ad
https://www.youtube.com › watch
https://www.youtube.com › watch
Ready to get down and dirty with the most f**ked up state laws? It's Govs Gone Wild! #DailyShowSubscribe ...
1 day ago · Uploaded by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
The “Govs Gone Wild” clip — a parody of videos released by the adult entertainment franchise “Girls Gone Wild” — details the “extreme assholishness” of Republicans and the “fucked up state laws” they are pushing.
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Flash News: Ukraine Intercepts Russian Kh-59 Cruise Missile Using US VAMPIRE Air Defense System Mounted on Boat. Ukrainian forces have made ...
