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Italy (Ammoland.com) Pope Francis spoke with a group of young people at a rally of thousands at the end of the first day of his trip to the Italian city of Turin. Francis started by attacking the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as well as accusing the allies during World War Two of being complicit in the killing of Jews, Christians and homosexuals. Francis issued his toughest condemnation to date of the weapons industry, saying. “If you trust only men you have lost,” he told the young people in a long, rambling talk about war, trust and politics after...

In 1995, he introduced a bill to terminate America’s nuclear weapons program. As late as 2002, he supported a 50 percent cut for the Pentagon. And he says corrupt defense contractors are to blame for “massive fraud” and a “bloated military budget.” Since he arrived in Congress, Bernie Sanders has been a fierce crusader against Pentagon spending, calling for defense cuts that few Democrats have been willing to support. Should he defeat Hillary Clinton, analysts say, he will likely be the biggest critic of the Pentagon to win a major party nomination since World War II. Story Continued Below “He...

A Georgia homeowner shot in the neck after police went to the wrong house has died, a lawyer for the family said Friday. William Powell, 63, died Thursday afternoon at Atlanta Medical Center, attorney Keith Martin said. A preliminary review of the 911 call indicates the three officers who responded had gone to the wrong home and showed up at Powell's house, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. Powell was armed with a gun and was shot in the neck by Sgt. Patrick D. Snook, the GBI said in a report. Snook is on paid leave, the standard protocol in...

The Senate is debating the Defense Authorization Bill, a bill to provide the annual legislation to map out defense spending priorities for the year, and is going to consider an idea that would hurt national security. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is pushing an earmark for Elon Musk that would make him, effectively, the sole distributor of rockets to launch new satellites into space. In a battle between two potential defense contractors, McCain is trying to pass an amendment that would prevent the United Launch Alliance from continuing to provide rockets so that his pal Musk can take over that contract.

The defense budget should be used to pay things that make our country more secure and help the men and women in uniform accomplish their mission. Unfortunately, some in Congress use this funding as a piggy bank for their own unrelated priorities. In fact, for the current fiscal year, Congress took almost $500 million from the defense budget to pay for non-military research projects. This is the wrong way for Congress to operate, and is particularly concerning given how seriously underfunded our military currently is. The U.S. military is in rough shape due to crushing budget cuts over the last...

Newly sworn in Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman was quick to announce on Monday evening that he supports the “two-state solution” to solve the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict. In a joint statement, Liberman and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu expressed support for the recent call by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for the sides to reach a peace agreement. “I am committed to peace with our Palestinian neighbors and with all our neighbors,” the Prime Minister said in the statement. “The Arab peace initiative includes essential elements that can help restore constructive negotiations with the Palestinians. We are ready to negotiate with the...

A Safeway clerk who says he punched a man in self-defense has been suspended by the supermarket chain. Surveillance video obtained by KIRO 7 shows Anthony Johnson in a fight with a man he says pulled a knife on him. “I did what anybody else would do, I defended myself,” Johnson said. But Johnson says even though police agree he was acting in self-defense, Safeway has suspended him for the fight while they investigate the incident. “You know my manager was literally there,” Johnson said. “He was the one who told me there was a knife being drawn. Why should...

US House blocks aid to duplicitous Pakistan The US House of Representatives' decision to incorporate stringent requirements for the release of American aid to Pakistan, even in the face of opposition from the White House, is indicative of a gradual change of heart in Washington, DC, towards what was once its frontline ally in the war on terror. It comes days after the US Congress objected to the sale of American F-16s, which have little value in fighting insurgents but help Pakistan build parity with India. This is not to suggest that the US is anywhere close to changing its...

For many of us concerned with liberty, the letters “NDAA” have come to symbolize Washington’s ongoing effort to undermine the U.S. Constitution in the pursuit of constant war overseas. It was the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012 that introduced into law the idea that American citizens could be indefinitely detained without warrant or charge if a government bureaucrat decided they had assisted al-Qaeda or “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States.” No charges, no trial, just disappeared Americans. The National Defense Authorization bill should be a Congressional mechanism to bind the president to spend...

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has no less than four military defense lawyers, plus his civilian lawyer, to try to beat the Army charge of desertion on the battlefield in Afghanistan. U.S. Army Forces Command at Fort Bragg, which will conduct Sgt. Bergdahl’s court martial, announced Tuesday that the military had concluded a brief pretrial hearing that morning and scheduled future hearings. Listed as the sergeant’s judge advocates were Lt. Col. Franklin D. Rosenblatt, Maj. Jason Thomas, Maj. Oren Gleich and Capt. Nina Banks. Asked whether he requested a large defense team, Sgt. Bergdahl’s lead civilian counsel, Eugene Fidell, said in an...

Put America First- rings true with voters. As they continue to size up billionaire Donald Trump and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, American voters appear highly conflicted on questions of national defense and foreign policy......... The conflict makes odd political alliances

The Oklahoma legislature has passed HB 3098, the bill to restore permitless open carry to Oklahoma.  The bill passed the House  73 to 15, and the Senate 37 to 9.  Unless it is stopped in conference committee, it will be sent to Governor Mary Fallin.  Two years ago, in 2014,Governor Fallin, (R) Oklahoma, vetoed a number of bills in what has been described as a “tantrum” on the 29th of April. The legislature overrode one of the bills.  It is unclear if Governor Fallin would veto HB 3098, which passed with veto proof majorities.  I have read the bill,...

Several prominent leaders in the national defense community are calling upon the Pentagon to re-start production of the high-speed F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet which began air attacks against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. Citing Russian and Chinese stealthy fighter jet advances, Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., and former Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne wrote an OPED in the Wall Street Journal describing the current fleet of F-22s as massively insufficient to address today’s fast-changing global threat environment. (article continues, please see link)

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump's emphasis that the guiding principle for foreign policy under his administration will be "America first" has made some of our European allies nervous. Germany's foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier characterized Trump's stance as "arrogant and selfish. To put America first is offensive to my ears. He is denying our equality and our right to participate in determining what America must do to protect all of our mutual interests. If this kind of self-centered viewpoint had prevailed in an earlier era my country and perhaps all of western Europe would today be run by fascists or communists."...

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been hailed as the 'most expensive weapon in history.'But despite a price tag of $400 billion for 2,457 planes, the fifth-generation fighter has been plagued with issues. Now, a new report says problems with its logistics software system could ground the entire fleet. The issue is with what the Department of Defense officials call the 'brains' of plane, also known as the Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS). A Government Accountability Office report says a failure 'could take the entire fleet offline' because there is no backup system.

Some of the nation’s leading defense companies are declaring war on a powerful enemy — an obscure Pentagon official named Shay Assad who has helped cut more than $500 million from military contracts with his aggressive scrutiny of their costs. The industry’s tactics include blanketing congressional committees with proposals that would make it harder for Assad and his contracting officers to get detailed breakdowns of the companies' expenses, according to documents obtained by POLITICO. But Assad, the Pentagon's pricing director for the past five years, refuses to back down, saying: "We are going to be relentless in pursuing getting the...

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The F-35 program that emerged proposed to build a dual-role tactical aircraft capable of both air-to-ground (strike) and air-to-air (fighter) combat operations. It is a fifth-generation aircraft designed to incorporate the most modern technology such as thrust vectoring, composite materials, stealth technology, advanced radar and sensors, and integrated avionics to greatly improve pilot situational awareness. The operational requirements of the F-35 program required 70% to 90% commonality between three versions of the aircraft—one for each of the air force (F-35A), marine corps (F-35B), and navy (F-35C). As a result, many of the high-cost parts—including the basic engine design, avionics, and...

Attorney Ilan Katz, who is heading the defense team for the soldier who last Thursday shot a wounded terrorist in Hevron, said on Wednesday that the soldier's lawyers will not agree to him being stood on trial for homicide. In the incident, the soldier was filmed by an Arab activist for the radical leftist NGO B'Tselem shooting a terrorist, who minutes earlier together with an accomplice stabbed and wounded a soldier. The soldier has argued he shot the terrorist over concerns he was moving to detonate a bomb belt that was thought to be hidden under his unseasonable coat. That...

Chicago Brown: Navy makes something positive out of Chicago violence Mark Brown This is a good news story, but underlying it is a bleak reality. The volume of gunshot wounds and other trauma cases treated at Stroger Hospital is so high that the U.S. Navy has teamed up the past two years with the hospital’s prestigious trauma unit to keep its medical personnel better prepared for their next deployment. The Navy guys might see as much action in a typical night at Stroger as they would if they were in a combat setting. Let that sink in for a minute....