#Department of Aircraft Production

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #39

October 18-25 2024.

President Biden issued the first presidential apology on behalf of the federal government to America's Native American population for the Indian boarding school policy. For 150 years the federal government operated a system of schools which aimed to destroy Native culture through the forced assimilation of native children. At these schools students faced physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and close to 1,000 died. The Biden-Harris Administration has been historic for Native and Tribal rights. From the appointment of the first ever Native American cabinet member, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, to the investment of $46 billion dollars on tribal land, to 200 new co-stewardship agreements. The last 4 years have seen a historic investment in and expansion of tribal rights.

The Biden-Harris Administration proposed a new rule which would make contraceptive medication (the pill) free over the counter with most Insurance. The new rule would ban cost sharing for contraception products, including the pill, condoms, and emergency contraception. On top of over the counter medications, the new rule will also strength protections for prescribed contraception without cost sharing as well.

The EPA announced its finalized rule strengthening standards for lead paint dust in pre-1978 housing and child care facilities. There is no safe level of exposure to lead particularly for children who can suffer long term developmental consequences from lead exposure. The new standards set the lowest level of lead particle that can be identified by a lab as the standard for lead abatement. It's estimated 31 million homes built before the ban on lead paint in 1978 have lead paint and 3.8 million of those have one or more children under the age of 6. The new rule will mean 1.2 million fewer people, including over 300,000 children will not be exposed to lead particles every year. This comes after the Biden-Harris Administration announced its goal to remove and replace all lead pipes in America by the end of the decade.

The Department of Transportation announced a $50 million dollar fine against American Airlines for its treatment of disabled passengers and their wheelchairs. The fine stems from a number of incidences of humiliating and unfair treatment of passages between 2019 and 2023, as well as video documented evidence of mishandling wheelchairs and damaging them. Half the fine will go to replacing such damaged wheelchairs. The Biden administration has leveled a historic number of fines against the airlines ($225 million) for their failures. It also published a Airline Passengers with Disabilities Bill of Rights, passed a new rule accessible lavatories on aircraft, and is working on a rule to require airlines to replace lost or damaged wheelchairs with equal equipment at once.

The Department of Energy announced $430 million dollars to help boost domestic clean energy manufacturing in former coal communities. This invests in projects in 15 different communities, in places like Texas, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Michigan. The plan will bring about 1,900 new jobs in communities struggling with the loss of coal. Projects include making insulation out of recycled cardboard, low carbon cement production, and industrial fiber hemp processing.

The Department of Transportation announced $4.2 billion in new infrastructure investment. The money will go to 44 projects across the country. For example the MBTA will get $400 million to replace the 92 year old Draw 1 bridge and renovate North Station.

The Department of Transportation announced nearly $200 million to replace aging natural gas pipes. Leaking gas lines represent a serious public health risk and also cost costumers. Planned replacements in Georgia and North Carolina for example will save the average costumer there over $900 on their gas bill a year. Replacing leaking lines will also remove 1,000 metric tons of methane pollution, annually.

The Department of the Interior announced $244 million to address legacy pollution in Pennsylvania coal country. This comes on top of $400 million invested earlier this year. This investment will help close dangerous mine shafts, reclaim unstable slopes, improve water quality by treating acid mine drainage, and restore water supplies damaged by mining.

Data shows that President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act (passed with Vice-President Harris' tie breaking vote) has saved seniors $1 billion dollars on out-of-pocket drug costs. Seniors with certain high priced drugs saw their yearly out of pocket costs capped at $3,500 for 2024. In 2024 all seniors using Medicare Part D will see their out of pocket costs capped at $2,000 for the year. It's estimated if the $2,000 cap had been in effect this year 4.6 million seniors would have hit it by June and not have had to pay any more for medication for the rest of the year.

The Department of Education announced a new proposed rule to bring student debt relief for 8 million struggling borrowers. The Biden-Harris Administration has managed despite road blocks from Republicans in Congress, the courts and law suits from Republican states to bring student loan forgiveness to 5 million Americans so far through different programs. This latest rule would take into account many financial hardships faced by people to determine if they qualify to have their student loans forgiven. The final rule cannot be finalized before 2025 meaning its fate will be decided at the election.

The Department of Agriculture announced $1.5 billion in 92 partner-driven conservation projects. These projects aim at making farming more susceptible and environmental friendly, 16 projects are about water conservation in the West, 6 support use of innovative technologies to reduce enteric methane emissions in livestock. $100 million has been earmarked for Tribal-led projects.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Boeing’s deliberately defective fleet of flying sky-wreckage

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner" is manufactured far from the company's Seattle facility, in a non-union shop in Charleston, South Carolina. At that shop, there is a cage full of defective parts that have been pulled from production because they are not airworthy.

Hundreds of parts from that Material Review Segregation Area (MRSA) were secretly pulled from that cage and installed on aircraft that are currently plying the world's skies. Among them, sections 47/48 of a 787 – the last four rows of the plane, along with its galley and rear toilets. As Moe Tkacik writes in her excellent piece on Boeing's lethally corrupt culture of financialization and whistleblower intimidation, this is a big ass chunk of an airplane, and there's no way it could go missing from the MRSA cage without a lot of people knowing about it:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-04-30-whistleblower-laws-protect-lawbreakers/

More: MRSA parts are prominently emblazoned with red marks denoting them as defective and unsafe. For a plane to escape Boeing's production line and find its way to a civilian airport near you with these defective parts installed, many people will have to see and ignore this literal red flag.

The MRSA cage was a special concern of John "Swampy" Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower who is alleged to have killed himself in March. Tkacik's earlier profile of Swampy paints a picture of a fearless, stubborn engineer who refused to go along to get along, refused to allow himself to become inured to Boeing's growing culture of profits over safety:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/

Boeing is America's last aviation company and its single largest exporter. After the company was allowed to merge with its rival McDonnell-Douglas in 1997, the combined company came under MDD's notoriously financially oriented management culture. MDD CEO Harry Stonecipher became Boeing's CEO in the early 2000s. Stonecipher was a protege of Jack Welch, the man who destroyed General Electric with cuts to quality and workforce and aggressive union-busting, a classic Mafia-style "bust-out" that devoured the company's seed corn and left it a barren wasteland:

https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merger-led-to-the-737-max-crisis

Post-merger, Boeing became increasingly infected with MDD's culture. The company chased cheap, less-skilled labor to other countries and to America's great onshore-offshore sacrifice zone, the "right-to-work" American south, where bosses can fire uppity workers who balked at criminal orders, without the hassle of a union grievance.

Stonecipher was succeeded by Jim "Prince Jim" McNerney, ex-3M CEO, another Jack Welch protege (Welch spawned a botnet of sociopath looters who seized control of the country's largest, most successful firms, and drove them into the ground). McNerney had a cute name for the company's senior engineers: "phenomenally talented assholes." He created a program to help his managers force these skilled workers – everyone a Boeing who knew how to build a plane – out of the company.

McNerney's big idea was to get rid of "phenomenally talented assholes" and outsource the Dreamliner's design to Boeing's suppliers, who were utterly dependent on the company and could easily be pushed around (McNerney didn't care that most of these companies lacked engineering departments). This resulted in a $80b cost overrun, and a last-minute scramble to save the 787 by shipping a "cleanup crew" from Seattle to South Carolina, in the hopes that those "phenomenally talented assholes" could save McNerney's ass.

Swampy was part of the cleanup crew. He was terrified by what he saw there. Boeing had convinced the FAA to let them company perform its own inspections, replacing independent government inspectors with Boeing employees. The company would mark its own homework, and it swore that it wouldn't cheat.

Boeing cheated. Swampy dutifully reported the legion of safety violations he witnessed and was banished to babysit the MRSA, an assignment his managers viewed as a punishment that would isolate Swampy from the criminality he refused to stop reporting. Instead, Swampy audited the MRSA, and discovered that at least 420 defective aviation components had gone missing from the cage, presumably to be installed in planes that were behind schedule. Swampy then audited the keys to the MRSA and learned that hundreds of keys were "floating around" the Charleston facility. Virtually anyone could liberate a defective part and install it into an airplane without any paper trail.

Swampy's bosses had a plan for dealing with this. They ordered Swampy to "pencil whip" the investigations of 420 missing defective components and close the cases without actually figuring out what happened to them. Swampy refused.

Instead, Swampy took his concerns to a departmental meeting where 12 managers were present and announced that "if we can’t find them, any that we can’t find, we need to report it to the FAA." The only response came from a supervisor, who said, "We’re not going to report anything to the FAA."

The thing is, Swampy wasn't just protecting the lives of the passengers in those defective aircraft – he was also protecting Boeing employees. Under Sec 38 of the US Criminal Code, it's a 15-year felony to make any "materially false writing, entry, certification, document, record, data plate, label, or electronic communication concerning any aircraft or space vehicle part."

(When Swampy told a meeting that he took this seriously because "the paperwork is just as important as the aircraft" the room erupted in laughter.)

Swampy sent his own inspectors to the factory floor, and they discovered "dozens of red-painted defective parts installed on planes."

Swampy blew the whistle. How did the 787 – and the rest of Boeing's defective flying turkeys – escape the hangar and find their way into commercial airlines' fleets? Tkacik blames a 2000 whistleblower law called AIR21 that:

creates such byzantine procedures, locates adjudication power in such an outgunned federal agency, and gives whistleblowers such a narrow chance of success that it effectively immunizes airplane manufacturers, of which there is one in the United States, from suffering any legal repercussions from the testimony of their own workers.

By his own estimation, Swampy was ordered to commit two felonies per week for six years. Tkacik explains that this kind of operation relies on a culture of ignorance – managers must not document their orders, and workers must not be made aware of the law. Whistleblowers like Swampy, who spoke the unspeakable, were sidelined (an assessment by one of Swampy's managers called him "one of the best" and finished that "leadership would give hugs and high fives all around at his departure").

Multiple whistleblowers were singled out for retaliation and forced departure. William Hobek, a quality manager who refused to "pencil whip" the missing, massive 47-48 assembly that had wandered away from the MRSA cage, was given a "weak" performance review and fired despite an HR manager admitting that it was bogus.

Another quality manager, Cynthia Kitchens, filed an ethics complaint against manager Elton Wright who responded to her persistent reporting of defects on the line by shoving her against a wall and shouting that Boeing was "a good ol’ boys’ club and you need to get on board." Kitchens was fired in 2016. She had cancer at the time.

John Woods, yet another quality engineer, was fired after he refused to sign off on a corner-cutting process to repair a fuselage – the FAA later backed up his judgment.

Then there's Sam Salehpour, the 787 quality engineer whose tearful Congressional testimony described more corner-cutting on fuselage repairs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP0xhIe1LFE

Salehpour's boss followed the Boeing playbook to the letter: Salehpour was constantly harangued and bullied, and he was isolated from colleagues who might concur with his assessment. When Salehpour announced that he would give Congressional testimony, his car was sabotaged under mysterious circumstances.

It's a playbook. Salehpour's experience isn't unusual at Boeing. Two other engineers, working on the 787 Organization Designation Authorization, held up production by insisting that the company fix the planes' onboard navigation computers. Their boss gave them a terrible performance review, admitting that top management was furious at the delays and had ordered him to punish the engineers. The engineers' union grievance failed, with Boeing concluding that this conduct – which they admitted to – didn't rise to the level of retaliation.

As Tkacik points out, these engineers and managers that Boeing targeted for intimidation and retaliation are the very same staff who are supposed to be performing inspections of behalf of the FAA. In other words, Boeing has spent years attacking its own regulator, with total impunity.

But it's not just the FAA who've failed to take action – it's also the DOJ, who have consistently declined to bring prosecutions in most cases, and who settled the rare case they did bring with "deferred prosecution agreements." This pattern was true under Trump's DOJ and continued under Biden's tenure. Biden's prosecutors have been so lackluster that a federal judge "publicly rebuked the DOJ for failing to take seriously the reputational damage its conduct throughout the Boeing case was inflicting on the agency."

Meanwhile, there's the AIR21 rule, a "whistleblower" rule that actually protects Boeing from whistleblowers. Under AIR21, an aviation whistleblower who is retaliated against by their employer must first try to resolve their problem internally. If that fails, the whistleblower has only one course of action: file an OSHA complaint within 90 days (if HR takes more than 90 days to resolve your internal complaint, you can no have no further recourse). If you manage to raise a complaint with OSHA, it is heard by a secret tribunal that has no subpoena power and routinely takes five years to rule on cases, and rules against whistleblowers 97% of the time.

Boeing whistleblowers who missed the 90-day cutoff have filled the South Carolina courts with last-ditch attempts to hold the company to account. When they lose these cases – as is routine, given Boeing's enormous legal muscle and AIR21's legal handcuffs – they are often ordered to pay Boeing's legal costs.

Tkacik cites Swampy's lawyer, Rob Turkewitz, who says Swampy was the only one of Boeing's whistleblowers who was "savvy, meticulous, and fast-moving enough to bring an AIR 21 case capable of jumping through all the hoops" to file an AIR21 case, which then took seven years. Turkewitz calls Boeing South Carolina "a criminal enterprise."

That's a conclusion that's hard to argue with. Take Boeing's excuse for not producing the documentation of its slapdash reinstallation of the Alaska Air door plug that fell off its plane in flight: the company says it's not criminally liable for failing to provide the paperwork, because it never documented the repair. Not documenting the repair is also a crime.

You might have heard that there's some accountability coming to the Boeing boardroom, with the ouster of CEO David Calhoun. Calhoun's likely successor is Patrick Shanahan, whom Tkacik describes as "the architect of the ethos that governed the 787 program" and whom her source called "a classic schoolyard bully."

If Shanahan's name rings a bell, it might be because he was almost Trump's Secretary of Defense, but that was derailed by the news that he had "emphatically defended" his 17 year old son after the boy nearly beat his mother to death with a baseball bat. Shanahan is presently CEO of Spirit Aerospace, who made the door-plug that fell out of the Alaska Airlines 737 Max.

Boeing is a company where senior managers only fail up and where whistleblowers are terrorized in and out of the workplace. One of Tkacik's sources noticed his car shimmying. The source, an ex-787 worker who'd been fired after raising safety complaints, had tried to bring an AIR21 complaint, but withdrew it out of fear of being bankrupted if he was ordered to pay Boeing's legal costs. When the whistleblower pulled over, he discovered that two of the lug-nuts had been removed from one of his wheels.

The whistleblower texted Tkcacik to say (not for the first time): "If anything happens, I'm not suicidal."

Boeing is a primary aerospace contractor to the US government. It's clear that its management – and investors – consider it too big to jail. It's also clear that they know it's too big to fail – after all, the company did a $43b stock buyback, then got billions in a publicly funded buyback.

Boeing is, effectively, a government agency that is run for the benefit of its investors. It performs its own safety inspections. It investigates its own criminal violations of safety rules. It loots its own coffers and then refills them at public expense.

Meanwhile, the company has filled our skies with at least 420 airplanes with defective, red-painted parts that were locked up in the MRSA cage, then snuck out and fitted to an airplane that you or someone you love could fly on the next time you take your family on vacation or fly somewhere for work.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa

Image: Tom Axford 1 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_sky_with_wisps_of_cloud_on_a_clear_summer_morning.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

--

Clemens Vasters (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:N7379E_-_Boeing_737_MAX_9.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[zvaigzdelasas]

Israeli tanks, jets and bulldozers bombarding Gaza and razing homes in the occupied West Bank are being fueled by a growing number of countries signed up to the genocide and Geneva conventions, new research suggests, which legal experts warn could make them complicit in serious crimes against the Palestinian people.

Four tankers of American jet fuel primarily used for military aircraft have been shipped to Israel since the start of its aerial bombardment of Gaza in October.

Three shipments departed from Texas after the landmark international court of justice (ICJ) ruling on 26 January ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. The ruling reminded states that under the genocide convention they have a “common interest to ensure the prevention, suppression and punishment of genocide”.

Overall, almost 80% of the jet fuel, diesel and other refined petroleum products supplied to Israel by the US over the past nine months was shipped after the January ruling, according to the new research commissioned by the non-profit Oil Change International and shared exclusively with the Guardian.

Researchers analyzed shipping logs, satellite images and other open-source industry data to track 65 oil and fuel shipments to Israel between 21 October last year and 12 July.

It suggests a handful of countries – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Gabon, Nigeria, Brazil and most recently the Republic of the Congo and Italy – have supplied 4.1m tons of crude oil to Israel, with almost half shipped since the ICJ ruling. An estimated two-thirds of crude came from investor-owned and private oil companies, according to the research, which is refined by Israel for domestic, industrial and military use.

Israel relies heavily on crude oil and refined petroleum imports to run its large fleet of fighter jets, tanks and other military vehicles and operations, as well as the bulldozers implicated in clearing Palestinian homes and olive groves to make way for unlawful Israeli settlements.

In response to the new findings, UN and other international law experts called for an energy embargo to prevent further human rights violations against the Palestinian people – and an investigation into any oil and fuels shipped to Israel that have been used to aid acts of alleged genocide and other serious international crimes.

“After the 26 January ICJ ruling, states cannot claim they did not know what they were risking to partake in,” said Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, adding that under international law, states have obligations to prevent genocide and respect and ensure respect for the Geneva conventions.[...]

“In the case of the US jet-fuel shipments, there are serious grounds to believe that there is a breach of the genocide convention for failure to prevent and disavowal of the ICJ January ruling and provisional measures,” said Albanese. “Other countries supplying oil and other fuels absolutely also warrant further investigation.”

In early August, a tanker delivered an estimated 300,000 barrels of US jet fuel to Israel after being unable to dock in Spain or Gibraltar amid mounting protests and warnings from international legal experts. Days later, more than 50 groups wrote to the Greek government calling for a war-crimes investigation after satellite images showed the vessel in Greek waters.

Last week, the US released $3.5bn to Israel to spend on US-made weapons and military equipment, despite reports from UN human rights experts and other independent investigations that Israeli forces are violating international law in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. A day later, the US approved a further $20bn in weapons sales, including 50 fighter jets, tank ammunition and tactical vehicles.

The sale and transfer of jet fuel – and arms – “increase the ability of Israel, the occupying power, to commit serious violations”, according to the UN human rights council resolution in March.

The US is the biggest supplier of fuel and weapons to Israel. Its policy was unchanged by the ICJ ruling, according to the White House.

“The case for the US’s complicity in genocide is very strong,” aid Dr Shahd Hammouri, lecturer in international law at the University of Kent and the author of Shipments of Death. “It’s providing material support, without which the genocide and other illegalities are not possible. The question of complicity for the other countries will rely on assessment of how substantial their material support has been.”[...]

A spokesperson for the Brazilian president’s office said oil and fuel trades were carried out directly by the private sector according to market rules: “Although the government’s stance on Israel’s current military action in Gaza is well known, Brazil’s traditional position on sanctions is to not apply or support them unilaterally.

Azerbaijan, the largest supplier of crude to Israel since October, will host the 29th UN climate summit in November, followed by Brazil in 2025.[...]

The Biden administration did not respond to requests for comment, nor did Vice-President Kamala Harris’s presidential election campaign team.

Israel is a small country with a relatively large army and air force. It has no operational cross-border fossil fuel pipelines, and relies heavily on maritime imports.[...]

The new data suggests:

•Half the crude oil in this period came from Azerbaijan (28%) and Kazakhstan (22%). Azeri crude is delivered via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, majority-owned and operated by BP. The crude oil is loaded on to tankers at the Turkish port of Ceyhan for delivery to Israel. Turkey recently submitted a formal bid to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ.

•African countries supplied 37% of the total crude, with 22% coming from Gabon, 9% from Nigeria and 6% from the Republic of the Congo.

•In Europe, companies in Italy, Greece and Albania appear to have supplied refined petroleum products to Israel since the ICJ ruling. Last month, Israel also received crude from Italy – a major oil importer. A spokesperson said the Italian government had “no information” about the recent shipments.

•Cyprus provided transshipment services to tankers supplying crude oil from Gabon, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan.[...]

Just six major international fossil-fuel companies – BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies – could be linked to 35% of the crude oil supplied to Israel since October, the OCI analysis suggests. This is based on direct stakes in oilfields supplying Israeli and/or the companies’ shares in production nationally.[...]

Last week, Colombia suspended coal exports to Israel “to prevent and stop acts of genocide against the Palestinian people”, according to the decree signed by President Gustavo Petro. Petro wrote on X: “With Colombian coal they make bombs to kill the children of Palestine.”

20 Aug 24

[palms-upturned]

For US unions like the UAW — which has thousands of members in weapons factories making the bombs, missiles, and aircraft used by Israel, as well in university departments doing research linked to the Israeli military — the Palestinian trade union call to action is particularly relevant. When the UAW’s national leadership came out in support of a cease-fire on December 1, they also voted to establish a “Divestment and Just Transition Working Group.” The stated purpose of the working group is to study the UAW’s own economic ties to Israel and explore ways to convert war-related industries to production for peaceful purposes while ensuring a just transition for weapons workers.

Members of UAW Labor for Palestine say they have started making visits to a Colt factory in Connecticut, which holds a contract to supply rifles to the Israeli military, to talk with their fellow union members about Palestine, a cease-fire, and a just transition. They want to see the union’s leadership support such organizing activity.

“If UAW leaders decided to, they could, tomorrow, form a national organizing campaign to educate and mobilize rank-and-file towards the UAW’s own ceasefire and just transition call,” UAW Labor for Palestine members said in a statement. “They could hold weapons shop town halls in every region; they could connect their small cadre of volunteer organizers — like us — to the people we are so keen to organize with; they could even send some of their staff to help with this work.”

On January 21, the membership of UAW Local 551, which represents 4,600 autoworkers at Ford’s Chicago Assembly Plant (who were part of last year’s historic stand-up strike) endorsed the Palestinian trade unions’ call to not cooperate in the production and transportation of arms for Israel. Ten days later, UAW Locals 2865 and 5810, representing around forty-seven thousand academic workers at the University of California, passed a measure urging the union’s national leaders to ensure that the envisioned Divestment and Just Transition Working Group “has the needed resources to execute its mission, and that Palestinian, Arab and Muslim workers whose communities are disproportionately affected by U.S.-backed wars are well-represented on the committee.”

Members of UAW Locals 2865 and 5810 at UC Santa Cruz’s Astronomy Department have pledged to withhold any labor that supports militarism and to refuse research collaboration with military institutions and arms companies. In December, unionized academic workers from multiple universities formed Researchers Against War (RAW) to expose and cut ties between their research and warfare, and to organize in their labs and departments for more transparency about where the funding for their work comes from and more control over what their labor is used for. RAW, which was formed after a series of discussions by union members first convened by US Labor Against Racism and War last fall, hosted a national teach-in and planning meeting on February 12.

Meanwhile, public sector workers in New York City have begun their own campaign to divest their pension money from Israel. On January 25, rank-and-file members of AFSCME District Council (DC) 37 launched a petition calling on the New York City Employees’ Retirement System to divest the $115 million it holds in Israeli securities. The investments include $30 million in bonds that directly fund the Israeli military and its activities. “As rank-and-file members of DC 37 who contribute to and benefit from the New York City Employees’ Retirement System and care about the lives of working people everywhere, we refuse to support the Israeli government and the corporations that extract profit from the killing of innocent civilians,” the petition states.

In an election year when President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates will depend heavily on organized labor for donations and especially get-out-the-vote efforts, rank and filers are also trying to push their unions to exert leverage on the president by getting him to firmly stand against the ongoing massacre in Gaza. NEA members with Educators for Palestine are calling on their union’s leaders to withdraw their support for Biden’s reelection campaign until he stops “sending military funding, equipment, and intelligence to Israel,” marching from AFT headquarters to NEA headquarters in Washington, DC on February 10 to assert their demand. Similarly, after the UAW International Executive Board endorsed Biden last month — a decision that sparked intense division within the union — UAW Labor for Palestine is demanding the endorsement be revoked “until [Biden] calls for a permanent ceasefire and stops sending weapons to Israel.”

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Two years after being ordered on an urgent basis, a new defence policy for Canada was unveiled Monday that promises — among other things — to bolster the military's surveillance and combat capabilities in the Arctic.

The strategy commits to delivering new equipment, including airborne early warning aircraft (AWACs), long-range surface-to-surface missiles for the army and utility helicopters that may or may not be manned.

The plan also lists new equipment the Department of National Defence is considering acquiring, such as air defence systems to protect critical infrastructure and new submarines.

The new policy, entitled Our North, Strong and Free, includes an additional $8.1 billion in new defence spending over the next five years and commits to an additional $73 billion in defence spending over the next two decades.

The additional investments will not bring Canada all the way to meeting NATO's military spending target for member nations — two per cent of national gross domestic product. The Liberal government estimates that the new policy will see military spending rise to 1.76 per cent of GDP by 2029-30. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @vague-humanoid

Note from the poster @el-shab-hussein: So NATO's mad at Canada for not doing enough imperialism and military pollution? Remind me what the Paris accords were for again?

[wachinyeya]

https://news.ku.dk/all_news/2024/06/researchers-invent-one-hundred-percent-biodegradable-barley-plastic/

From the article; Enormous islands of it float in our oceans and microscopic particles of it are in our bodies. The durability, malleability and low cost of plastics has made them ubiquitous, from packaging to clothing to aircraft parts. But plastics have a downside. Plastics contaminate nature, are tough to recycle and their production emits more CO2 than all air traffic combined.

Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences have invented a new material made from modified starch that can completely decompose in nature – and do so within only two months. The material is made using natural plant material from crops and could be used for food packaging, among many other things.

"We have an enormous problem with our plastic waste that recycling seems incapable of solving. Therefore, we’ve developed a new type of bioplastic that is stronger and can better withstand water than current bioplastics. At the same time, our material is one hundred percent biodegradable and can be converted into compost by microorganisms if it ends up somewhere other than a bin," says Professor Andreas Blennow of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences.

Only about nine percent of plastic is recycled globally, with the rest being either incinerated or winding up in nature or dumped into enormous plastic landfills.

Bioplastics already exist, but the name is misleading says Professor Blennow. While today’s bioplastics are made of bio-derived materials, only a limited part of them is actually degradable, and only under special conditions in industrial composting plants.

"I don't find the name suitable because the most common types of bioplastics don't break down that easily if tossed into nature. The process can take many years and some of it continues to pollute as microplastic. Specialized facilities are needed to break down bioplastics. And even then, a very limited part of them can be recycled, with the rest ending up as waste," says the researcher.

Starch from barley and sugar industry waste

The new material is a so-called biocomposite and composed of several different substances that decompose naturally. Its main ingredients, amylose and cellulose, are common across the plant kingdom. Amylose is extracted from many crops including corn, potatoes, wheat and barley.

Together with researchers from Aarhus University, the research team founded a spinoff company in which they developed a barley variety that produces pure amylose in its kernels. This new variety is important because pure amylose is far less likely to turn into a paste when it interacts with water compared to regular starch. Cellulose is a carbohydrate found in all plants and we know it from cotton and linen fibers, as well as from wood and paper products. The cellulose used by the researchers is a so-called nanocellulose made from local sugar industry waste. And these nanocellulose fibers, which are one thousand times smaller than the fibers of linen and cotton, are what contribute to the material’s mechanical strength.

"Amylose and cellulose form long, strong molecular chains. Combining them has allowed us to create a durable, flexible material that has the potential to be used for shopping bags and the packaging of goods that we now wrap in plastic," says Andreas Blennow.

The new biomaterial is produced by either dissolving the raw materials in water and mixing them together or by heating them under pressure. By doing so, small 'pellets' or chips are created that can then be processed and compressed into a desired form.

Thus far, the researchers have only produced prototypes in the laboratory. But according to Professor Blennow, getting production started in Denmark and many other places in the world would be relatively easy.

"The entire production chain of amylose-rich starch already exists. Indeed, millions of tons of pure potato and corn starch are produced every year and used by the food industry and elsewhere. Therefore, easy access to the majority of our ingredients is guaranteed for the large-scale production of this material," he says.

Could reduce plastic problem

Andreas Blennow and his fellow researchers are now processing a patent application that, once it has been approved, could pave the way for production of the new biocomposite material. Because, despite the huge sums of money being devoted to sorting and recycling our plastic, the researcher does not believe that it will really be a success. Doing so should be seen as a transitional technology until we bid fossil-based plastics a final farewell.

"Recycling plastic efficiently is anything but straightforward. Different things in plastics must be separated from each other and there are major differences between plastic types, meaning that the process must be done in a safe way so that no contaminants end up in the recycled plastic. At the same time, countries and consumers must sort their plastic. This is a massive task that I don’t see us succeeding at. Instead, we should rethink things in terms of utilizing new materials that perform like plastic, but don’t pollute the planet," says Blennow.

The researcher is already collaborating with two Danish packaging companies to develop prototypes for food packaging, among other things. He envisions many other uses for the material as well, such as for the interior trims of cars by the automotive industry. Though it is difficult to say when this biofriendly barley-based plastic will reach the shelves, the researcher predicts that the new material may become a reality in the foreseeable future.

“It's quite close to the point where we can really start producing prototypes in collaboration with our research team and companies. I think it's realistic that different prototypes in soft and hard packaging, such as trays, bottles and bags, will be developed within one to five years," concludes Andreas Blennow.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Researchers invent 100% biodegradable 'barley plastic'

A biofriendly new material made from barley starch blended with fiber from sugarbeet waste—a strong material that turns into compost should it end up in nature—has been created at the University of Copenhagen. In the long term, the researchers hope that their invention can help put the brakes on plastic pollution while reducing the climate footprint of plastic production. Enormous islands of plastic float in our oceans and microscopic particles of it are in our bodies. The durability, malleability and low cost of plastics has made them ubiquitous, from packaging to clothing to aircraft parts. But plastics have a downside. Plastics contaminate nature, are tough to recycle and their production emits more CO2 than all air traffic combined. Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences have invented a new material made from modified starch that can completely decompose in nature—and do so within only two months. The material is made using natural plant material from crops and could be used for food packaging, among many other things.

Read more.

[mastersoftheair]

"Masters of the Air details: Part 1-Graphics

"[...]I had the pleasure of working with the graphics department on many topics from navigation to mission planning, forms, manuals, research and just plain answering questions.

"Dan Burke was the department head but I mostly worked with Megan Jones and her wonderful pup Indy.

"When on set, like in one of the offices that you have seen in the first two episodes or anywhere else in the series, you will see bulletin boards, clip boards, file folders and in/out trays and typewriters filled with paperwork. If you were able to pick up one of these documents you will find actual 100th BG documents faithfully recreated and they are also pertinent to the specific time of the scene. And I am not just talking a page on top but all the way through the stack!

"The mission orders came in to the bomb groups via teletype machines and were printed out on special sized roll paper. Meg found a guy who had working WWII teletypes and then she found the exact paper. She printed up the correct mission reports and they were coming out of the machines and looked great!

"One of the things that Meg asked me about was the navigation paperwork. Crosby had several scenes where he was navigating and just what kind of paperwork would he have had?

"Charts, maps and navigators logs was the answer to begin with and I had brought examples of those with me to teach the actors how to look like they could navigate. I even had some of my Dad's paperwork and nav kit along. Meg recreated his bare nav log to use with Crosby's scenes.

"We then looked in to the mission routes so we could fill out the nav logs and mark the charts and big briefing wall map accurately. I dove in to the archives mission files that they had procured from sources in the US but since this was deep in the middle of COVID the archives were closed down and getting additional research information was problematic. The National Archives in the UK opened up and I was there on the weekend doing research. Instead of the multi generation degraded copies that production received from the US these files were all original and in perfect condition. Incredible stuff for sure with all of the photos complete with Air Ministry water marks on the back of the paper.

"In the mission files were the planned route of the mission and also the actual route flown which were often quite different. I dug in to the files and was able to plot out the planned and actual mission routes on charts that Meg had reproduced. For the pilot types reading this I also plotted all of the routes on ForeFlight to help with quick calculations for the headings as we actually put in the winds that were encountered and reported in the mission file. Meg ended up getting Foreflight so we could share the plots and work out the future missions.

"One of the things that I hadn't realized but was revealed in the reports was just how much time was spent in forming up the whole attacking armada. Each bomb group would all take off and form up over their own air field. Then they would go to specific assembly areas and form up the wings and full task force. It took two, three or more hours of flying just to do this over the UK before they headed toward fortress Europe. Amazing really and it explains why so many aircrew died during this from collisions climbing through the ugly weather. Hundreds and then thousands of aircraft all coming up through the heavy cloud layer on instruments trying not to hit each other. A lot of them did and a near miss sequence is depicted in the series.

"So when you see the paperwork, posters, maps, teletypes and amazing other details you can appreciate the efforts of Megan and the graphics department. And all of the other departments, Some of which I will try to highlight in future posts if this is of interest." - (Taigh Ramey on Facebook)

[deutschland-im-krieg]

Professor Doktor Kurt Tank was a German aeronautical engineer and test pilot who led the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931 to 1945. After serving in the Army in WW1 as a decorated Hauptmann (Captain), he graduated from the Technical University of Berlin in 1923. A mentor from the university secured him his first job, in the design department of Rohrbach Metallflugzeug GmbH, where he worked on flying boats, and helped design a passenger aircraft, the Ro V.III Roland.

Tank moved to the firm Albatross Flugzeugwerke, where he worked as a test pilot. The Albatros company went bankrupt in 1929 and in 1931, under government pressure, was merged with Focke-Wulf. Tank then started work on the design of the Fw 44 Stieglitz (Goldfinch), a two-seat civilian biplane. It was Focke-Wulf's first commercially successful design, launched in 1932. In 1934 Tank's Fw 56 Stösser (Goshawk) advanced trainer began production.

He was responsible for the creation of several important Luftwaffe aircraft including the Fw 187 Falke heavy fighter, Fw 190 fighter, the Ta 152 fighter-interceptor, the Ta 154 Moskito night fighter and the Fw 200 Condor airliner. After the war, Tank spent two decades designing aircraft abroad, working first in Argentina and then in India, before returning to Germany in the late 1960s to work as a consultant for Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB)

[capybaracorn]

Australia challenged on ‘moral failure’ of weapons trade with Israel

Regular protests have been taking place outside Australian firms making crucial components for the F-35 fighter jet.

Melbourne, Australia – Israel’s continued assault on Gaza has highlighted a hidden yet crucial component of the world’s weapons manufacturing industry – suburban Australia.

Tucked away in Melbourne’s industrial north, Heat Treatment Australia (HTA) is an Australian company that plays a vital role in the production of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters; the same model that Israel is using to bomb Gaza.

Weekly protests of about 200 people have been taking place for months outside the nondescript factory, where heat treatment is applied to strengthen components for the fighter jet a product of US military giant Lockheed Martin.

While protesters have sometimes brought production to a halt with their pickets, they remain concerned about what’s going on inside factories like HTA.

“We decided to hold the community picket to disrupt workers, and we were successful in stopping work for the day,” Nathalie Farah, protest organiser with local group Hume for Palestine, told Al Jazeera. “We consider this to be a win.”

“Australia is absolutely complicit in the genocide that is happening,” said 26-year-old Farah, who is of Syrian and Palestinian origin. “Which is contrary to what the government might have us believe.”

More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war in Gaza six months ago after Hamas killed more than 1,000 people in a surprise attack on Israel. The war, being investigated as a genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has left hundreds of thousands on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations.

Nathalie Farah has been organising regular protests outside HTA’s factory [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]

According to Lockheed Martin, “Every F-35 built contains some Australian parts and components,” with more than 70 Australian companies having export contracts valued at a total 4.13 billion Australian dollars ($2.69bn).

Protesters have also picketed Rosebank Engineering, in Melbourne’s southeast, the world’s only producer of the F-35’s “uplock actuator system”, a crucial component of the aircraft’s bomb bay doors.

Defence industry push

In recent years, the Australian government has sought to increase defence exports to boost the country’s flagging manufacturing industry.

In 2018, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced Australia aimed to become one of the world’s top 10 defence exporters within a decade. It is currently 30th in global arms production, according to the Stockholm International Peace Institute.

It is an aspiration that appears set to continue under the government of Anthony Albanese after it concluded a more than one-billion-Australian-dollar deal with Germany to supply more than 100 Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier vehicles in 2023 – Australia’s single biggest defence industry deal.

Since the Gaza war began, the industry and its business relationship with Israel have come increasingly under the spotlight.

Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles insisted that there were “no exports of weapons from Australia to Israel and there haven’t been for many, many years”.

However, between 2016 and 2023 the Australian government approved some 322 export permits for military and dual-use equipment to Israel.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s own data – available to the public online – shows that Australian exports of “arms and ammunition” to Israel totalled $15.5 million Australian dollars ($10.1m) over the same period of time.

Officials now appear to be slowing the export of military equipment to Israel.

In a recent interview with Australia’s national broadcaster ABC, the Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy insisted the country was “not exporting military equipment to Israel” and clarified this meant “military weapons, things like bombs”.

However, defence exports from Australia fall into two categories, items specifically for military use – such as Boxer Heavy Weapons vehicles for Germany – and so-called ‘dual use’ products, such as radar or communications systems, that can have both civilian and military uses.

[See the video embedded in the article]

Australia’s Department of Defence did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests about whether the halt to defence exports to Israel also included dual-use items.

What is certain is that companies such as HTA and Rosebank Engineering are continuing to manufacture components for the F-35, despite the risk of deployment in what South Africa told the International Court of Justice in December amounted to “genocidal acts“.

In the Netherlands – where parts for the jet are also manufactured – an appeal court last month ordered the Dutch government to block such exports to Israel citing the risk of breaching international law.

The Australian government has also come under scrutiny for its lax “end-use controls” on the weapons and components it exports.

As such, while the F-35 components are exported to US parent company Lockheed Martin, their ultimate use is largely outside Australia’s legal purview.

Lauren Sanders, senior research fellow on law and the future of war at the University of Queensland, told Al Jazeera that the “on-selling of components and military equipment through third party states is a challenge to global export controls.

“Once something is out of a state’s control, it becomes more difficult to trace, and to prevent it being passed on to another country,” she said.

Sanders said Australia’s “end use controls” were deficient in comparison with other exporters such as the United States.

“The US has hundreds of dedicated staff – with appropriate legal authority to investigate – to chase down potential end-use breaches,” she said.

“Australia does not have the same kind of end-use controls in place in its legislation, nor does it have the same enforcement resources that the US does.”

The protesters say they will continue their action until manufacturing of F-35 components is stopped [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]

In fact, under legislation passed in November 2023, permits for defence goods are no longer required for exports to the United Kingdom and the US under the AUKUS security agreement.

In a statement, the government argued the exemption would “deliver 614 million [Australian dollars; $401m] in value to the Australian economy over 10 years, by reducing costs to local businesses and unlocking investment opportunities with our AUKUS partners”.

International law

This new legislation may provide more opportunities for Australian weapons manufacturers, such as NIOA, a privately owned munitions company that makes bullets at a factory in Benalla, a small rural town in Australia’s southeast.

The largest supplier of munitions to the Australian Defence Force, NIOA – which did not respond to Al Jazeera for comment – also has aspirations to break into the US weapons market.

At a recent business conference, CEO Robert Nioa said that “the goal is to establish greater production capabilities in both countries so that Australia can be an alternative source of supply of weapons in times of conflict for the Australian and US militaries”.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge told Al Jazeera that the government needed to “publicly and immediately refute the plan to become a top 10 global arms dealer and then to provide full transparency on all Australian arms exports including end users.

“While governments in the Netherlands and the UK are facing legal challenges because of their role in the global supply chain, the Australian Labor government just keeps handing over weapons parts as though no genocide was happening,” he said. “It’s an appalling moral failure, and it is almost certainly a gross breach of international law.”

The Dutch government has faced legal action over the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel [File: Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters]

Elbit has come under fire for its sale of defence equipment to the Myanmar military regime, continuing sales even after the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup, was accused of gross human rights violations – including attacks on civilians – by the United Nations and others.

Despite a recent joint announcement between the Australian and UK governments for an “immediate cessation of fighting” in Gaza, some say Australia needs to go further and cut defence ties with Israel altogether.

“The Australian government must listen to the growing public calls for peace and end Australia’s two-way arms trade with Israel,” Shoebridge said. “The Albanese government is rewarding and financing the Israeli arms industry just at the moment they are arming a genocide.”

Protests have continued both at the HTA factory in Melbourne and their premises in Brisbane, with organisers pledging to continue until the company stops manufacturing components for the F-35.

[darkmaga-returns]

Julia Gledhill

Nov 04, 2024

Time is running out for Congress to pass the annual defense policy bill. After the election, lawmakers must reconcile the differences between their versions of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and set the topline for Pentagon spending in fiscal year 2025. When they do, they must strip two measures that will make it easier for contractors to engage in price gouging.

While the House abided by the spending caps Congress established in last year’s debt deal, the Senate added about $25 billion to the president’s budget request for the Pentagon — bringing the department’s topline to a whopping $912 billion. This is excessive, and the increase will not make Americans any safer. Lawmakers should communicate that to those negotiating the final NDAA.

Members of Congress cannot, however, overlook two seemingly benign provisions in the House version of the bill. If retained, Sections 811 and 812 of the House-passed NDAA would bolster contractors’ ability to price gouge the Pentagon — already a significant issue for the military. Just this week the Department of Defense (DOD) Inspector General found that Boeing overcharged the Air Force by nearly a million dollars on various products for the C-17 military transport aircraft. In one case, Boeing overcharged the military for a soap dispenser by nearly 8,000%, more than 80 times the commercial price.

[girlactionfigure]

🔅Sunday Morning - ISRAEL REALTIME news update

🔻HEZBOLLAH - Rockets x 2 rounds, 30 round 1, 7 round 2 - at Bar Yochai, Meron, Marom HaGalil Regional Center, Kfar Shamai, Baram, Dovev, Jish (Gush Halav), Zivon, Safsufa (Kfar Hoshen), Or HaGanuz

▪️ISRAEL ELECTIONS ROUND 2.. those cities in which a leading candidate did not receive at least 40% of the vote have a second round today. Voting station locations are the same as the first round, opens at 1:00 PM and closes at 10:00 PM.

▪️WELCOME TO RAMADAN ON MONDAY.. Houthis: “The month of Ramadan is a month of jihad before it is a month of worship. We will continue to mobilize, and stay on alert.”

(Small Wars Journal) Although Ramadan is the month of repentance and a time of unity and solidarity for Muslims worldwide, terrorist organizations take this opportunity to call for terrorist attacks, labelling it “the month of conquest and jihad”. Attacks during Ramadan fit the strategic rationale of such organizations, as it allows them to showcase their operational capacity. Equally they are also attractive from the perpetrators’ perspective, as they are expected to receive double the reward during the holy month.

Statistics show about a 20% increase in islamic terror attacks during Ramadan.

▪️A HERO SOLDIER HAS FALLEN.. in battle in Gaza. Amisher ben David, 43, of Eli. He was also the first cousin of the Minster of Finance.

▪️HAMAS CLAIMS MORE MURDERED HOSTAGES.. Yoram Metzger, Haim Perry, Amiram Cooper. While there is no confirmation, if they have been killed : may G-d avenge their blood!

▪️SYRIA ATTACKED.. On Shabbat evening, an unidentified aircraft attacked a building in eastern Syria for the production of suicide drones, at the site of the attack there were dead and wounded who were evacuated to field hospitals in the city of Albu Kamal.

▪️IRAN SAYS.. Quds Force commander Ismail Kaani: "Iran and its partners are on the way to escalation against Israel."

▪️US SHIP.. US Central Command: The ship General S. Frank Besson departed Virginia for the Gaza Strip. The ship is carrying logistics equipment to establish a temporary dock in order to bring humanitarian aid into the Strip.

▪️HOSTAGE PROTESTS.. on Friday distraught hostage families and associates blocked Highway 1 towards Jerusalem. "We must reach a deal now!"

[usafphantom2]

Northrop Grumman releases new photo of B-21 Raider, after receiving prestigious award from Aviation Week magazine

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 03/21/2024 - 22:28in Military

Northrop Grumman Corporation received the Aviation Week Grand Laureate Award in the defense category for its role as the main contractor in the delivery of the B-21 Raider to the United States Air Force. Aviation Week announced the Grand Laureate winners at its 66ª annual Laureate award in Washington, D.C.

"On behalf of the entire B-21 Raider national team, Northrop Grumman is honored to receive this prestigious award," said Tom Jones, corporate vice president and president of Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems. "The Grand Laureate represents the pioneering spirit, innovative technology and pioneering approach to contract management that gave life to the world's first sixth-generation aircraft."

In the fall of 2023, the U.S. Air Force confirmed that the first B-21 test vehicle had entered a flight test, followed by a low-rate initial production premium. The aircraft is currently undergoing a robust flight test campaign run by the B-21 Combined Test Force at Edwards Air Base in California. The program continues to meet all technical, schedule and accessibility requirements of the Department of Defense on its way to operational capacity.

Developed with the next generation of stealth technology, advanced network capabilities and open systems architecture, the B-21 Raider will serve as the backbone of the U.S. bomber fleet. Capable of carrying conventional and nuclear loads, the B-21 will be one of the most effective aircraft in the sky, with the ability to use a wide combination of isolated and direct attack ammunition.

“This bomber will be able to defend our country with new weapons that have not yet been invented,” said U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin when the B-21 was launched in the spring of 2023. "Even the most sophisticated anti-aircraft systems will have difficulty detecting the B-21." The Raider is also "multifunctional," says Austin. "He can do anything."

Details about the progress of the program were only made available in pieces from the beginning, because the myth of secrecy surrounds the project. Only a few scattered observers recorded the start of the first flight on November 10, 2023, which took the Raider prototype from its place of origin in Palmdale to Edwards Air Base for posterity. Since that day, things have been calm in relation to the B-21. The manufacturer and the U.S. Air Force remained silent about the status of the flight tests. All that is confirmed is that they are happening and that they are obviously on schedule.

Tags: Military AviationB-21 RaiderNorthrop GrummanUSAF - United States Air Force / U.S. Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[mariacallous]

After decades of strategic drift and costly acquisition failures, the U.S. Navy is sailing straight into a storm it can’t avoid. Despite the Defense Department’s lip service about China being the “pacing challenge,” decades of deindustrialization and policymakers’ failure to prioritize among services and threats have left the Navy ill-equipped to endure a sustained high-intensity conflict in the Pacific. The United States is unable to keep pace with Chinese shipbuilding and will fall even further behind in the coming years. Where does that leave the U.S. Navy and the most critical U.S. foreign-policy imperative: deterring a war in the Pacific?

As evidenced by the Biden administration’s latest budget request, fiscal constraints are forcing the Navy to cut procurement requests, delay modernization programs, and retire ships early. The Navy’s budget for the 2025 fiscal year calls for decommissioning 19 ships—including three nuclear-powered attack submarines and four guided-missile cruisers—while procuring only six new vessels. The full scope of what military analysts have long warned would be the “Terrible ’20s” is now evident: The expensive upgrading of the U.S. nuclear triad, simultaneous modernization efforts across the services, and the constraint of rising government debt are compelling the Pentagon to make tough choices about what it can and cannot pay for.

Workforce shortages and supply chain issues are also limiting shipbuilding capacity. The defense industrial base is still struggling to recover from post-Cold War budget cuts that dramatically shrank U.S. defense manufacturing. The Navy needs more shipyard capacity, but finding enough qualified workers for the yards remains the biggest barrier to expanding production. The shipbuilding industry is struggling to attract talent, losing out to fast food restaurants that offer better pay and benefits for entry-level employees. At bottom, it is a lack of welders, not widgets, that must be overcome if the U.S. Navy is to grow its fleet.

Instead, the shipbuilding outlook is progressively worsening. An internal review ordered by Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro in January found that major programs, including submarines and aircraft carriers, face lengthy delays. Even the Constellation-class frigates, touted as a quick adaptation of a proven European design, are delayed by three years.

As defense analyst David Alman outlined in a prize-winning essay for the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings, the United States simply can’t win a warship race with China. The United States effectively gave up on commercial shipbuilding during the Reagan administration in the name of free trade. In the decades that followed, generous state subsidies helped China dominate commercial shipbuilding, and Beijing’s requirement that the sector be dual-use resulted in an industry that can shift to production and ship repair for the military during a conflict, much as U.S. shipyards did during World War II. The U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence estimates that China now has 232 times the shipbuilding capacity of the United States. China built almost half the world’s new ships in 2022, whereas U.S. shipyards produced just 0.13 percent.

Rebuilding the arsenal of democracy that anchored the U.S. victory at sea 80 years ago won’t happen overnight or cheaply—it is a generational project. The 20-year Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program aimed at upgrading dry docks, facilities, and equipment will end up costing well over the projected $21 billion. But the plan is only intended to maximize existing U.S. industrial capacity and won’t do much to close the enormous shipbuilding gap with China. That would require a reconstitution program on par with the series of maritime laws passed after World War I, which supported the expansion of an industrial base eventually capable of turning out thousands of carriers, destroyers, submarines, frigates, and cargo ships for the Atlantic and Pacific fleets.

Realizing that U.S. shipyards are stretched thin, policymakers have begun looking abroad. Del Toro encouraged South Korean companies to invest in U.S. naval shipping during a visit this year. Japan will likely begin performing repair and maintenance work on U.S. warships soon; India agreed to do so last year. These initiatives will alleviate the increasing maintenance backlog at U.S. facilities, but it would take a large share of the combined Japanese and South Korean shipyard capacity to fundamentally alter the growing disparity between the U.S. and Chinese fleet size in the Western Pacific.

Ships are not all comparable, of course. U.S. warships are heavier and more capable than China’s, although a dearth of logistics vessels and sealift capability are major concerns. Still, the current era of missile warfare has magnified the importance of fleet size.

Without enough ships to match the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy, what can the United States do to maintain conventional deterrence in the Pacific and prevent war? At least two big things: buy missiles and cut back on missions.

First, to manage risk in the short term, the Navy and the other services need to rapidly procure more munitions—focusing on weapons and capabilities, not the platforms that carry them.

The Russia-Ukraine war has military planners thinking less about short, quick conflicts and more about long wars and their vast need for materiel. What holds for depleted stocks of land-based artillery also holds for many of the weapons needed for a war at sea. A much-publicized 2023 wargame conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that the United States would run out of its entire inventory of the key Long Range Anti-Ship Missile within the first few days of a war over Taiwan. Ramping up the procurement and production of these munitions, as well as Joint Strike Missiles, Standoff Land Attack Missiles, and Harpoon missiles will enable U.S. airpower to help even the odds in the Pacific.

Anti-ship systems operated by the Army and Marines could also complement the other services’ firepower. However, the deployment of ground-based missiles will require allies’ consent. To date, no Asian allies of the United States have volunteered to permanently host U.S. missile batteries, due to political sensitivities and the fact that these countries already have such weapons of their own.

Innovation and creativity could further augment U.S. naval power. Retired U.S. Marine Col. T.X. Hammes, a fellow at the National Defense University, has urged the Navy to convert commercial container ships into warships capable of launching missiles, which would add a tremendous volume of firepower at a bargain price. These “missile merchants” would also require significantly less manpower than traditional warships do, a major consideration given the Navy’s struggle to fill existing billets.

Policymakers also need to make hard choices and limit naval deployments. Though the Navy is shrinking, its missions aren’t. A high operational tempo, manpower shortfalls, and an aging fleet are fueling a readiness crisis that is burning out sailors and ships.

Addressing the readiness crisis requires taking a hard look at which missions are essential for U.S. security and which aren’t. As former Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work has written, since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Navy has spent 30 years prioritizing global presence over warfighting readiness. The deadly Pacific ship accidents in 2017 involving the USS Fitzgerald and USS John McCain were directly attributable to this unsustainable mania for global presence, according to a Navy review.

The preeminence of presence missions also has more subtle consequences. After 20 years of largely uncontested deployments to the Middle East, the U.S. Navy now has an opponent who shoots back: Yemen’s Houthis. But increased experience in missile and drone defense is outweighed by a deleterious drain on precision munitions. In the conflict with the Houthis, the Navy burned through more Tomahawk land attack missiles in one day than it purchased in all of 2023. Meanwhile, the Houthis can replace all equipment destroyed by U.S. attacks with just two shiploads from Iran, according to Gen. Michael Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command.

The costs of maintaining global presence are magnified by the state of Navy recruiting and retention. The service’s recruiting woes are undeniable. The Navy missed all of its recruiting goals in 2023, some by as much as 35 percent. The service projects a shortfall of 6,700 recruits this year, according to its chief personnel officer.

Like the rest of the all-volunteer force, unprecedented recruiting headwinds mean manpower shortages will remain a persistent challenge for the Navy. Absent any change in operational tempo, sailors will work harder, deploy more frequently, and leave the service in greater numbers—ensuring a downward spiral for both manning and readiness.

The United States can’t match the size of China’s fleet in the near or medium term. Deindustrialization, poor procurement choices, and a myopic fixation on the U.S. presence in the Middle East have seen to that. All that said, the U.S. Navy still retains several significant advantages in a potential conflict with China: submarine dominance, overall tonnage, blue-water experience, and support from capable allies. A major increase in joint munitions purchases and an end to the readiness drain of presence deployments to secondary theaters will enhance the Navy’s edge during the potential peak window for a Chinese move on Taiwan over the next decade. The alternative is grim. If conventional deterrence fails, it risks military defeat for the United States or something even more dangerous: nuclear confrontation between the world’s two superpowers.

[mylittlesecrethaven]

I Read Project 2025, So Here's A Rundown I Guess: Part 3.3

Idk if this counts as political, but I'm just reading the stupid book online and putting down what it basically says and some other stuff i Guess. (it could get political I guess? Idk. Just kinda wanted to make these posts since I'm reading the book and I kept getting annoyed with people just saying what the book says instead of writing down exactly what it says and what page to find it on)

(That's not saying I won't do the same thing, but for some things I'll rewrite what it says unless it just needs to be summarized. I will have page numbers though)

(also, if this stuff does go into effect, I will be fearing for my life and the lives of many others for the effects this could have on people. for lgbtq, minorities in religion, race, and ethnicity, and those who are poor. this will effect everyone and a lot of people should be afraid of it. that is not be getting political, that is me saying that this is a scary plan meant to give powerful people even more power)

(also, if you want a faster rundown than waiting for me to give shitty interpretations of this, go to the wiki here. it sums it up pretty well, but it doesn't state everything.)

Department of Defense Reforms -

U.S. Army:

Increase army's budgets to remain the world's most powerful land power, accelerate development of army weapon modernization to replace outdated combat systems, increase funding to improve army training, increase army force structure by 50,000 to handle two major regional issues simultaneously, reform recruiting efforts to recruit more people (Pages 108-109)

Increase production and keeping of critical ammunition and repair parts fir weapons, prioritize adding expeditionary planning in all weapon designs to better the chance of having an advantage, increase the level of joint force training with other branches, prepare to remove soldiers from U.S. based transportation buildings that have been compromised by opposing forces (Page 109)

"Stop using the Army as a test bed for social evolution," demand accountability in senior leaders to help increase public support for military service, reestablish bases to help gain experience for high-ranking officers for the planning and leadership of army formations in large scale operations, examine logic of up-and-coming army concepts about using long range weapons and their effects without considering how to gain an advantage by closing in and defeating an enemy on land, realize that high intensity land combat operations cannot be sustained through unit rotations during said combat, change national guard deployment structure during extended operations to prevent destabilization and preserve military volunteerism in communities, change army school curriculum to concentrate on preparing for large land operations that focus on defeating the threat, address the underlying causes that are increasing army suicide rates (Pages 109-110)

U.S. Navy:

Build a fleet of more than 355 ships, develop and implement unmanned systems to help manned forces, require that range and lethality be key factors in making and sustaining ships, aircraft, and munitions (Page 111)

Reestablish the general guard to better than it is now (an advisory position that helps make decisions on strategies and basic ship decisions) (Page 111)

"Harness innovation and willingness to tolerate risk so that 'good enough' systems can be fielded rapidly," use the space development agency as a model (an agency that delivers space-based capabilities to war fighters faster and cheaper by using commercial development), establish an oversight board of directors (Page 111)

Produce key ammunitions at the maximum rate with significant capacity, employ the widest range of techniques to enhance ammunition supply chains and workforce (Page 112)

Mandate qualifications that show a core competent in war fighting, make the Headquarters Staff focused on Warfighter Development to develop such requirements, require war games to be used as experience gaining learning environments, make sure it is known that navy forces can and must maintain the ability to defend sovereign territories like out allies and partners, "train to balance the effects from kinetic to no kinetic and from lethal to nonlethal through effective command and control" (whatever that means) (Page 112)

U.S. Air Force:

Adopt a two-war force defense strategy to help attain resources the Air Force requires quicker, eliminate pass-through funding (funding that is sent to a state agency or institution and is then sent where it is needed from there), increase the Air Force budget by 5 percent annually (Pages 113-114)

Increase F-35A attainment to 60-80 per year, increase build capacity for B-21 to produce 15-18 per year, increase Air Force aerial fueling capacity, develop and buy larger quantities of advanced mid-range weapons that are sized to maximum targets per attack, accelerate the development and production of the Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, increase the number of EC-37B electronic warfare aircrafts from 10-30 (Page 114)

Attain an optimized advanced battle management system, produce the next generation of air dominance systems for aircrafts, improve moving target engagement capability and capacity against sea, sea surface, and ground mobile targets, build more resilient communications and sustainment for survival in a "contested environment," establish a vigorous and sufficiently funded electromagnetic spectrum operations recovery plan (a plan to better recover troops with electromagnetic systems) (Pages 114-115)

[degen-gamer]

The Creative Assembly assembles a machine for living

The primordial harshness of space is on horrifying display in the 1979 film Alien. The crew of the spaceship Nostromo - featuring Sigourney Weaver as Ellen Ripley - was stalked by the xenomorph, a fearsome lifeform conceived by Swiss designer and architecture graduate H.R. Giger.

The utilitarian human architecture, gestated by concept artist Ron Cobb and realized by production designer Michael Seymour's art department, is equally memorable, with corridors that have proven especially influential. Director Ridley Scott sought a tangible reality that captured 'the beauty of something absolutely about function'.

In Alien: Isolation, British developer The Creative Assembly lets us inhabit this world, caught in a deadly game of hide and seek. Following the discovery of Nostromo's recorder, the player takes on the role of Ellen Ripley's daughter Amanda and arrives at Sevastopol: a space station undergoing decommission on the outer rim, in the orbit of a gas giant.

Lead artist Jude Bond and concept artist Bradley Wright based Sevastopol's design on the ore refinery towed by the Nostromo in the film; its cathedral-like spires were initially conceived in an illustration by Ridley Scott. Sevastopol features three, not four towers, and extends the decks below the platform that serves as an artificial ground. Massive thrusters - 'gravity anchors' - are retrofitted to domes underneath. In The Art of Alien: Isolation (2014), Wright notes: 'I [initially] explored ideas of this large machine structure that formed the center of each tower's hub - a mini-brain of sorts.' Each tower serves an 'archetypal function - habitation, technical and science' with 'engineering on the lower decks', somewhat reminiscent of Paolo Soleri's arcology, Novanoah I.

For the internal spaces, Wright 'took cues from Cobb's simplified utilitarian color choices to make a clean and readable design'. The spaces emulate the film sets with exacting verisimilitude - from the distinctive padded corridors to the turret rail-mounted chairs - but also sees them evolve into a cohesively complete and functional environment that considers circulation, light, even introductory impact and interior to exterior sight lines. The film's art director Roger Christian clad the sets in old aircraft parts and bond adds: 'We've limited ourselves to things which could have been or were available in 1979.'

The architecture is treated as a machine, with its utilitarian aspects and exoskeleton exposed, like the xenomorph itself. One of the early Nostromo designs by concept artist Chris Foss suggested a 'Mississippi river boat' or steamship - which coincidentally also served as inspiration in Le Corbousier's machine for living, the Villa Savoye.

Alien: Isolation exemplifies architecture in the context of a machine and finds aesthetic beauty in its lo-fi functionalism.

Oliver Zeller

Mark Magazine 55: April/May 2015