Envelope that tested positiver for Ricin sent to Sen. Roger Wicker, Mississippi Republican, AP reports. Sigh. Let’s hope there’s only one. @colinclarkaol
senate
SAC makes 671 cuts to "unnecessary or under-performing programs" for DoD; FY 2013 OCO and base = $604.9 billion in their CR, out tonight. @ColinClarkAOL
Chuck #Hagelnomination will come to vote tomorrow @ 2:30pm. Sen. Carl Levin, #SASC chairman, intends to hold vote right after. @colinclarkaol
CRYSTAL CITY: A senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee has given up hope that the House can agree on anything to prevent sequestration, provide defense appropriations for the remainder of the year, or raise the debt ceiling.
Judging from the way all the recent fiscal crises have been resolved, the solution has been “a Senate-driven process,” Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said this morning, addressing the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference. Keep reading →
[After meeting this morning with Amb. Susan Rice, Senator Kelly Ayotte, R-NH, spoke to reporters today at a 12noon roundtable at the Foreign Policy Institute's annual conference, where she promised there "absolutely" would be a hold if Amb. Rice is nominated for Secretary of State -- and potentially, a hold on any administration nominee for the position -- until the administration answers Congress's questions about the terrorist attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi. (Click here for Jon Huntsman's exhortation to his fellow Republicans to back off on Benghazi). What follows is our rush transcript of her remarks.]
My meeting with Amb. Rice — I actually came out of the meeting more troubled than I went in, for a couple of reasons…. Keep reading →
In the Army, David Fastabend urged his fellow soldiers to “Adapt or Die,” as he entitled his essay on the need for innovation — but the principle also applies to the field he now works in, civilian cybersecurity. Keep reading →
WASHINGTON: The defense spending bill passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee today keeps Block 30 Global Hawk drones flying, instead of letting them be warehoused as the Air Force had planned, a congressional source confirmed to Breaking Defense. That is arguably the final flourish on Congress’s utter rejection of the Air Force’s proposed cuts in the 2013 budget. The bill passed by a vote of 30-0.
Breaking Defense plowed through 300 pages of report language released to the press this afternoon and picked out new details about winners and losers. But all of this detail might be overtaken by events. Keep reading →
WASHINGTON: The Lockheed Martin Joint Strike Fighter is the biggest conventional weapons program in history and Vice Adm. David Venlet has run it to much acclaim and quite a bit of backbiting, depending on who you talk with.
This afternoon the Pentagon very quietly sent out notice that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had nominated Venlet’s deputy, Air Force Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan for a third star and assignment as director of the F-35 program. Keep reading →
Delay Sequestration By Six Months; ‘We Need To Know What We’re Doing,’ Sez Sen. Feinstein
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
CAPITOL HILL [updated 12:40 with Feinstein, Inouye remarks and results of amendment vote]: Sequestration drama roiled an otherwise pro forma mark-up of the Senate’s defense appropriations bill this morning, with a precious flicker of bipartisanship over the need to avert the sequester soon overtaken by disagreement over the legalities of layoff notices.
If the automatic cuts go into effect in January, “everything you achieved in this mark up is going to be wiped out,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham warned his fellow Senate appropriators. Graham said that averting the sequester was so important that he and his fellow Republicans must “readjust” their no-new-taxes pledge and make a deal with Democrats to raise revenues. Keep reading →
CAPITOL HILL: Senate Armed Services Committee leaders released a 100-plus-page report on the administration’s Asia strategy today, including — perhaps inadvertently — four pages of comments from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Keep reading →
Colin Clark
Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr.