''Army Reducing Its Numbers in Face of Recruiting Difficulties''

breitbart.com/politics/2022/03/30/army-reducing-its-numbers-in-face-of-recruiting-difficulties

–March 31, 2022 Kristina Wong 30 Mar 2022 2,579 5:46

''The Army this week admitted it was having problems recruiting and announced an unprecedented reduction in its numbers that would shrink the active-duty Army to its smallest size since World War II.''

“We’re facing, obviously, some challenging conditions in terms of our ability to recruit and attract talent,” Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo said at a press conference on Monday.

Camarillo blamed a “very tight labor market” for the Army’s recruiting woes.

“What we’re just seeing is given the particular conditions of a very tight labor market, our ability to meet all of our projected recruiting goals were a little bit challenged in FY ’22 and FY ’23,” he said.

Camarillo said the Army’s end strength, or a total number of forces, would go from 485,000 soldiers currently to 476,000 in the fiscal year 2022, which ends in September, and further down to 473,000 in the fiscal year 2023.

He said the Army decided on reducing its recruitment goals instead of lowering standards.

“We made the assessment that we would not want to adjust our specific criteria for quality,” he said. “And so, we made the decision to just temporarily reduce end strength, as opposed to lowering our standards.”

He added that the Army hoped to build back its numbers over the next five years.

“We don’t anticipate that it is a lasting change,” Camarillo said. “It is something that we hope to bring back up over the course of the fight up. And it’s something that we certainly think is reflective of what we hope to be transient conditions in the labor market.”

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, called the situation unprecedented.

“The Army has not faced such recruiting headwinds in the last 30 years. I am unaware of a situation where the Army has cut its end strength in response to a negative recruiting outlook,” he said.

Spoehr also attributed the decision to the Biden Administration keeping the Army budget below inflation.

“If the Biden administration was not holding the Army’s budget below the level of inflation, I am not sure they would have had to resort to cutting their end strength,” he said.

The reduction would bring the Army to its smallest since 1940, according to Military Times.

Spoehr said the Army’s decision would make units less capable:

The Army has said that rather than reduce the number of units, instead they will man units at a lower level. So, the Army’s companies and battalions, rather than being manned at say 95-100%, with this end strength cut, the Army may only be able to fill them to a 90% level. That means less capable units.

The recruiting difficulties come as the Army has begun discharging soldiers not complying with the Biden administration’s coronavirus vaccine mandate. More than 4,000 requested a religious exemption, but only two were granted, according to recent Army statistics. An additional 2,735 soldiers have refused.

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The difficulties are also despite the Army last year launching animated recruitment advertisements that highlighted women, minorities, immigrants, and the LGBT community, as previously reported by Breitbart News.

Spoehr called the Army’s recruiting difficulties “a perfect storm, all hitting in 2022.”

First, he said fewer and fewer individuals even qualify to enlist. He said:

The biggest disqualifying factors are obesity, fitness, and mental health issues. This should not come as a surprise. Obesity in America, including among youth, continues to increase. More and more youth are being treated for mental health issues and being prescribed psychotropic drugs for treatment. Current numbers coming out of the Pentagon are that the percentage of individuals qualified to enlist without a waiver has dropped from 29% in 2016 to less than 25% in 2022.

Second, he said fewer and fewer individuals are interested in joining the military, also in part thanks to the Biden administration’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal:

There are economic reasons for this, many companies are now offering more generous compensation packages that include college tuition to graduating high school seniors. There are lots of jobs available now. And over time American society has placed less and less value on the idea of public service. The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan has also caused some to question our military and their competence.

Finally, he cited the perception that the military is becoming “woke.”

“There is a sense among the American public that the military is becoming increasingly political and that topics such as race and gender equity, critical race theory, and wokeism in general are commanding more attention, at the cost of readiness,” he said.

Public polls have backed up that assessment. Earlier this year, a Gallup poll showed that the public image of military leaders’ ethics has dropped, particularly among Republicans, and a Ronald Reagan Institute poll last year showed that high confidence in the military has declined. Among those with little or not much confidence in the military, the most common answer was “political leadership.”

Spoehr added: “I should note that it is my assessment that for the first time ever, it may turn out that none of the military services will make their recruiting goals for 2022. The Air Force, in particular, is sounding the alarm.”

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Court Rules Democrats Engaged in “Extreme Partisan Gerrymander” in Maryland

jonathanturley.org/2022/03/26/court-rules-democrats-engaged-in-extreme-partisan-gerrymander-in-maryland

March 26, 2022

I recently wrote a column on the hypocrisy of Democratic activists and members denouncing attacks on democracy as they engage in raw gerrymandering in states like New York. Marc Elias, the former Clinton Campaign general counsel accused of hiding the funding of the Steele Dossier, filed in support of the gerrymandered map. The case is Szeliga vs. Lamone.

This is the first time that a congressional map has been thrown out in the history of the state. (It is important to note that Republicans have also had courts rule against them in states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania).

While only 55 percent of Maryland identifies as Democratic, the map would have given Democrats a huge advantage in every district by carefully “cracking” or distributing Republican voting pockets to diffuse their power.

Anne Arundel County Senior Judge Lynne A. Battaglia was scathing in the effort to rig the election by dividing the state into seven Democratic districts and one Republicans district. The court found that, in their 2021 Congressional Plan, the Democrats not only violated Maryland law but the state constitution’s equal protection, free speech, and free elections clauses.

The court concluded:

“Finally, with respect to the evaluation of the 2021 Plan through the lens of the Constitution and Declaration of Rights, it is axiomatic that popular sovereignty is the paramount consideration in a republican, democratic government. The limitation of the undue extension of power by any branch of government must be exercised to ensure that the will of the people is heard, no matter under which political placard those governing reside. The 2021 Congressional Plan is unconstitutional and subverts the will of those governed.”

Elias has been accused of making millions from gerrymandering and challenging election victories by Republicans (while condemning such actions by Republicans as “anti-Democratic”). He was involved in the New York redistricting that was ridiculed as not only ignoring the express will of the voters to end such gerrymandering but effectively negating the votes of Republican voters.

Elias has long been a controversial figure in politics. I previously described news accounts linking the firm and Elias to the dossier scandal:

Throughout the campaign, the Clinton campaign denied any involvement in the creation of the so-called Steele dossier’s allegations of Trump-Russia connections. However, weeks after the election, journalists discovered that the Clinton campaign hid payments for the dossier made to a research firm, Fusion GPS, as “legal fees” among the $5.6 million paid to the campaign’s law firm. New York Times reporter Ken Vogel said at the time that Clinton lawyer Marc Elias, with the law firm of Perkins Coie, denied involvement in the anti-Trump dossier. When Vogel tried to report the story, he said, Elias “pushed back vigorously, saying ‘You (or your sources) are wrong.’” Times reporter Maggie Haberman declared, “Folks involved in funding this lied about it, and with sanctimony, for a year.”

It was not just reporters who asked the Clinton campaign about its role in the Steele dossier. John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, was questioned by Congress and denied categorically any contractual agreement with Fusion GPS. Sitting beside him was Elias, who reportedly said nothing to correct the misleading information given to Congress.

The Washington Post also reported that “Elias drew from funds that both the Clinton campaign and the DNC were paying Perkins Coie.” Elias has featured prominently in the ongoing investigation of John Durham.

That history has not stopped media like CNN asking Elias “what should we be doing differently” in covering elections. He chastised the media for not having enough of a “pro-democracy slant,” which appears to mean a more Democratic slant.

Elias and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee defended the map despite being given an “F” by the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.