The recently leaked "F-35 Joint Striker Fighter Concurrency Quick Look Review" reported that "the F-35C had failed to grab the cable used on carrier desks to bring the aircraft to a stop in recent tests", according to InsideDefense.

In my previous posts I've been reporting on schedule delays...

On December 7th, I reported that Air Force officials recommended that F-35 testing "should begin [pilot] training at Eglin AFB [Air Force Base] as soon as an event-driven process results in a military flight release." Senator McCain went on the Senate floor and suggested that "it's wise to...

It used to be that "Put your money where your mouth is" was a well-regarded phrase. It challenged four-flushers and phonies to put cash on the line or back away from their fabrications. So I was stunned when the wrath of the media descended upon Mitt Romney because he

InsideDefense confirmed Tuesday "that there are still 'outstanding risks associated with the Joint Strike Fighter flight training..." It interpreted that confirmation as "a sign of concurrence with the Pentagon's top weapons tester that the F-35 is not yet ready for unmonitored flight or formal training."

Monday, John...

Two years ago, I contributed a piece, "Afghanistan: Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham," to the Huffington Post. This week, I saw a news clip on NewsMarket.com, a PR website which offers video handouts on behalf of its clients (in this case, NATO), that is a near-perfect example of...

It's more than six months since the United Nations declared the airspace over Libya to be a "no-fly zone" and authorized Member States "to take all necessary measures... to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack from the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya..." That seemed to me...

For 28 years, Congress has rejected all attempts to preserve the solvency of the Social Security system. For the past 15 years, everyone has recognized that some correction had to be made, but, as we all know, nothing has been done to improve it. I sit here, holding in my...

Not only was Casey Anthony found not guilty, but she also won more total day viewers than FoxNews, MSNBC and CNN. She also won in all the demographic categories in total day and primetime. Fox won in primetime total viewers, but only by 100,000. It was the worst week FoxNews...

It was Harry Cohn, boss of Columbia Pictures, who said "give the people what they want, and they'll come out for it." Now they can stay in and watch it. And what they watched in June is the Casey Anthony trial. For the first time ever, to my knowledge,

Representative Bill Young (R-FL) has blocked the Department of Defense's request to add MRAPs (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) to its light tactical vehicle fleet since before March of this year. Young demanded that the Army spend money on trying to improve Humvees, vehicles that no longer meet the...

This week, I attended the Intelligence Squared debate on that topic, and was both informed and amused by the exchanges between Alan Dershowitz and David Sanger, a New York Times investigative reporter on the side of freedom, and Gabriel (no relation) Schoenfeld, of the Hudson Institute, and Michael...

Thirty-five years ago, Barbara Walters left her job on the Today Show at NBC to become co-anchor with Harry Reasoner on ABC's nightly news half hour. ABC had offered her the then unheard of salary of a million dollars a year to take the anchoring job. NBC had the right...

May proved that, when it comes to hard news, CNN has the most to gain. Blessed by the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, the torrent of tornados and the continuing conflict in Libya, CNN's primetime audience grew by 34%. FoxNews and MSNBC both maintained larger audiences with their...

The G8 announced in Paris last week that one element of any settlement in Libya is that Col. Gaddafi "must go" and his "reign of terror" must end. That's a little more than "protecting the civilian population". And when at today's press conference, NATO's spokeswoman said that military...

Last Tuesday, NATO forces launched 20 sorties over Tripoli. NATO reported that all the attacks were launched against military targets, usually designated as "command-and-control centers". John Burns, reporting in the New York Times, reports that the attacks "caused thunderous explosions and fireballs that leapt high into the night...

Just short of a month ago, we posted "The Real Lessons of Kosovo" on this site, now we are in the process of learning, or not learning, the same lessons in Libya.

According to The New York Times, last week, Britain's top military commander, Gen. Sir David Richards, said...

Last week, CNN proved once again that it is the television news source that occasional news viewers seek out when major stories break. It ranked ninth among all cable networks on a total day basis, averaging almost 900,000 a day. In primetime, it ranked eleventh, averaging more than 1,100,000 viewers...

None of the comparisons between the NATO/U.S. war in Kosovo and the war in Libya recognize the importance of the 1999 airstrikes on Belgrade in our winning that war. It was not until U.S. and other NATO aircraft bombed and destroyed much of Belgrade's infrastructure that hostilities in Kosovo ended....

In Moscow in 1990 and '91, I was working with Tass trying to help the Soviet news agency transform itself from a propaganda factory into a straightforward press agency. Our first step, because it was the easiest, was an attempt to convert Tass photos into the world's first digital photo...

I'm proud of CNN for the first time in years. Last week, CNN primetime coverage of breaking news in the Middle East and in Japan earned them more than 1,362,000 viewers (they still lag behind Fox News by almost 800,000 viewers). But they beat Fox News in 18-49s...