Twitter Does It Again: Behold @cromnibus

(Photo from Twitter) Legislative crises have becoming a Holiday Season tradition in Washington right up there with powerful officials mingling with other powerful officials at invitation-only parties. But, thankfully, a snarky soul has created a Twitter account to help us all cope. On Tuesday evening, senior lawmakers rolled out what’s called a “cromnibus.” You may…

DoD OCO Requests $700M for Bombs and Ammo

As the congressional oversight panels continue their review of the Pentagon’s $58.6 billion 2015 Overseas Contingency Operations budget request, much of the focus has been on the high-profile items, such as a $4 billion request for a new counterterrorism fund and $1 billion to boost US military presence in Europe. But the request includes $53 billion…

Army’s Aerostat Ready for Overseas Deployment

If a US combatant commander stationed somewhere around the globe feels that the one thing the command is missing is the ability to detect missiles, airplanes and drones hundreds of miles away, the US Army has just what they’re looking for. Almost a decade after it first began development—and just two years after a 2012…

ESSAY: Obama’s Bergdahl-Taliban Gamble Is All About Timing

Buried beneath the nasty political brawl over the Obama administration’s swap of five senior Taliban prisoners for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is Obama’s cold-blooded strategic thinking. And President Barack Obama’s big gamble already has deepened Republicans’ frustrations with him, which could make easing sequestration a political impossibility.

NSA Doesn’t Scoop Up Facial Recognition info on US Citizens – On Purpose

The head of the National Security Agency insisted today that contrary to recent reports, his organization does not collect facial recognition data on US citizens – on purpose. “We do not do this in some unilateral basis against US citizens,” insisted Adm. Michael Rogers. “We have very specific restrictions when it comes to US persons.”…

Mabus to Colbert: Arctic Melting Means More Ocean to ‘Navy’ On

  It’s Fleet Week in New York City, so that means warships parked at Hudson River piers on Manhattan’s west side, sailors in their dress whites frolicking through the city streets and the Blue Angels performing at Long Island’s Jones Beach Airshow. And this year it meant Navy Secretary Ray Mabus went on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report for an entertaining interview…