TV News LIES

The Department of Defense moved this week to dramatically reduce the number of recognized religions, faiths and belief systems from more than 200 all the way to 31.

The move was announced to troops in a memo signed by Anthony Tata, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness of the United States, and shared with USA TODAY by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF).

In the memo, Tata says that the move comes at the direction of Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, who said the move was done to “streamline the DoW collection of religious preferences collection for service members to enhance the delivery of targeted religious support from the Chaplaincy.”

Founder and President of the MRFF, Mikey Weinstein, called the move to reduce the number of recognized religions a direct hit on the Constitution's First Amendment.

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The House Armed Services Committee adopted a provision for the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would demand the Pentagon inform Congress why senior military officers were fired or dismissed within five days.

The requirement was introduced by Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and was adopted Thursday without objections in a bipartisan voice vote.

The provision comes as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired two dozen senior military officers since taking the helm at the Pentagon, prompting bipartMore...isan worries that experienced officials are being dismissed without explanation.

Earlier this year, Hegseth fired widely respected Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, leading some House Republicans to voice opposition to the move, arguing that George is an experienced military leader.

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The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, stripped nine navy officers including women and Black service members from a promotion list last month, according to a person familiar with the matter, resulting in an all-male, overwhelmingly white slate of 22 advancing as nominees to become one-star admirals.

Hegseth’s unusual intervention violated promotion rules designed to be merit-based and apolitical, the New York Times said on Tuesday, and extended the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the military.

The original promotion list included three women and two Black officers in addition to the two who remained, the newspaper said.

A navy source said that officials in the service had been “very confident” with those on the promotion list, including the officers whom Hegseth removed. He said Hegseth did not explain to the navy why he removed the officers from the list.

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The US military attacked a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, killing two men, as the Trump administration wages a months-long campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America.

The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the US military to at least 207 since the administration began targeting people it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September.

As with most of the military’s statements on strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, US Southern Command said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs. A video posted on X showed a boat speeding through the water before bursting into flames.

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The US military said on Saturday it had carried out a strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific killing three men, the second strike in as many days.

Officials with the US Southern Command said in a post on X that intelligence had confirmed that the vessel was transiting along “narco-trafficking” routes in the eastern Pacific and engaged in “narco-trafficking” operations.

“Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action,” the post said. “No US military forces were harmed.”

On Friday, the US military said it carried out another strike on a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean. That attacked killed three men as well, pushing the over death toll in such strikes by the US over the last several months to more than 200 people.

Friday’s and Saturday’s strikes were among four over the previous week.

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At a time when the American public is expressing unprecedented levels of distrust in the Israeli government, Congress just proposed tying the U.S. to the Israeli military more than ever before.

Buried in the House's version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday, is section 224, entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948.

Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation. The U.S. and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense, but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more. It also proposes “network integration” and “data fusion.” In other words, the U.S. military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data.

If fully enacted, this proposal would provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the U.S. has with any other country in the world. To be sure, the U.S. has worked closely with its NATO partners on co-production and shared supply chains, most notably via the Defence Production Action Plan. And, as the number one arms dealer in the world, the U.S. provides weapons to militaries across the globe. But that is mostly a one-way street, with the U.S. providing weapons to foreign buyers who only occasionally make parts for those weapons themselves, as in the case of the F-35’s global supply chain.

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