The Houston Police Department received criticism for agonizing over the culprit’s correct pronouns after an attempted mass shooting inside Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church.
Authorities identified the shooter as Genesse Ivonne Moreno, who previously used the name Jeffrey Escalante Moreno.
Moreno, who it was initially suspected could have been transgender, was accompanied by a 7-year-old child for whom she was the biological mother.
The child and another 57-year-old man were the only people injured in the shooting, which was quickly stopped by armed off-duty police officers who killed the suspect.
During a press conference, Houston PD announced, “She’d utilized both male and female names, but through all of our investigation to this point, talking with individuals, interviews, documents, Houston Police Department reports she has been identified this entire time as female – she her – and so we are identifying her as Genesse Moreno – hispanic female.”
Elon Musk responded, accusing the police of having “Seriously messed up priorities.”
Moreno, originally from El Salvador, also reportedly had written the words “Free Palestine” on her AR-15, although authorities later clarified that the word just said “Palestine”.
The shooter, who had a long criminal record, entered the church wearing a long rifle, a backpack and a trench coat.
Antisemitic writings were also found inside the vehicle Moreno drove to the church.
The child was shot in the head during the incident and is not expected to survive.
Despite charges of assault, weapons, marijuana possession, forgery charges stretching back to 2005 and a history of schizophrenia and mental illness, as well as harming her own child twice, Moreno was able to legally purchase the AR-15.
Some respondents on X also questioned why Moreno’s race was also apparently recorded as being “white”.
Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.
Senate Passes $95BN Ukraine-Israel Package But Johnson Signals Blockade In House
Early Tuesday Senate Democrats and Republicans joined to pass the $95 billion national security package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan after months of tense holdup and negotiations by Republicans, given especially the fight over the border security measures.
“With this bill, the Senate declares that American leadership will not waiver, will not falter, will not fail,” announced Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, after working closely with Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on the legislation.
The Associated Press details that the “vote came after a small group of Republicans opposed to the $60 billion for Ukraine held the Senate floor through the night, using the final hours of debate to argue that the U.S. should focus on its own problems before sending more money overseas.”
“But 22 Republicans voted with nearly all Democrats to pass the package 70-29, with supporters arguing that abandoning Ukraine could embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and threaten national security across the globe,” AP notes.
Among those leading the last stand was Sen. Rand Paul, who vowed to told out until “hell freezes over” and spoke out about the massive national debt on the Senate floor.
“I love to talk,” Paul said going into last night. “That’s one of my favorite things to do. Yes, and I slept all day yesterday waiting for this. I’m going to take Adderall — nah, I’m just kidding.”
Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled blockade in the House, saying that the House is not going to take up the bill anytime soon as it doesn’t include the vital border security provisions.
He had said Monday night, “House Republicans were crystal clear from the very beginning of discussions that any so-called national security supplemental legislation must recognize that national security begins at our own border.” He added: “In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters.”
Former president and current Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has been vocal on the campaign trail in encouraging GOP Congressional leaders to block it and holdout as long as possible.
Politico reports: Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance “distributed a memo to Senate GOP offices on Monday arguing that the foreign aid measure could tie Trump’s hands if he comes into office next year wanting to pause Ukraine funds as part of negotiations on ending Russia’s war on the U.S. ally. That’s because some of the legislation’s funding expires nine months into the next presidency, effectively — according to Vance — handcuffing a future President Trump from making his own decisions on Ukraine spending.”
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) said it’s possible the $95 billion emergency foreign aid bill could get Donald Trump impeached.https://t.co/vFf1AeShV2
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) said last week that Democrats could attempt to force the bill to the floor through a discharge petition, however admitted the strategy it doubtful: “House Democrats are prepared to use every available legislative tool to make sure we get comprehensive national security legislation over the finish line,” he said.
Stocks, Bonds, & Bullion Puke After Hot CPI Print Hammers Rate-Cut Hopes
“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth…”
The soft-landing, Fed-will-cut-and-save-us-all, but mega-cap-tech-to-the-moon narrative just got punched in the mouth by a CPI print so ugly I wouldn’t touch it with yours. Most significantly SuperCore – which The Fed has highlighted – soared higher…
CPI Prints Hotter Than Expected In January As SuperCore Soared
Expectations were for a big drop in the YoY consumer price index (from +3.4% to +2.9%) but instead it surprised to the upside (just as we warned) with a +3.1% YoY print for headline CPI (spoiling the sub-3% partiers). Consumer prices rose 0.3% MoM (more than the 0.2% exp) but the headline did decline from +3.4% to +3.1% YoY…
Source: Bloomberg
The 3-month annualized rate ticked up to 4% from 3.3%. The 6-month annualized rate was 3.7% (vs 3.2%). Not pretty.
Core CPI fell below 4.00% YoY for the first time since May 2021, but the +3.86% YoY print was hotter than the 3.7% exp (with prices rising 0.4% MoM – the biggest jump since April 2023)…
Source: Bloomberg
CPI Core: The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.4 percent in January.
The shelter index increased 0.6 percent in January, and was the largest factor in the monthly increase in the index for all items less food and energy.
The index for owners’ equivalent rent rose 0.6 percent over the month, while the index for rent increased 0.4 percent.
The lodging away from home index increased 1.8 percent in January.
Shelter disinflation slowed…
Rent inflation +6.09% YoY in Jan vs 6.47% in Dec
Shelter Inflation +6.04% YoY in Jan vs 6.15% in Dec
The motor vehicle insurance index increased 1.4 percent in January, and the recreation index rose 0.5 percent in January.
Among other indexes that rose in January were communication, personal care, airline fares, and education.
The medical care index rose 0.5 percent in January.
The index for hospital services increased 1.6 percent over the month and the index for physicians’ services increased 0.6 percent.
The prescription drugs index fell 0.8 percent in January.
The index for used cars and trucks fell 3.4 percent in January.
The index for new vehicles was unchanged in January.
The apparel index also decreased, falling 0.7 percent over the month.
Core Service inflation picked up MoM…
..and accelerated YoY
Source: Bloomberg
Under the hood, food and Energy services costs jumped MoM along with transportation services…
Here’s the biggest component upside surprises…
And one step deeper – the so-called SuperCore: Core CPI Services Ex-Shelter index – soared 0.7% MoM (the biggest jump since Sept 2022…
… driving the YoY change up to +4.4% – the hottest since May 2023….
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, as a reminder, lower inflation does not mean lower prices.
Source: Bloomberg
The actual index of consumer prices hit a new record high this month – and is up over 18% since President Biden’s term began(it was up 8% over President Trump’s full four year term).
And it gets worse…
Source: Bloomberg
The re-accleration of inflation means wage growth is back in the red relative to prices.
White House Chaos: Susan Rice Slammed “Bitch Ass” Becerra Over Border; Biden “Exploded” With Rage
Axios is out with a damning report.
Apparently in January of 2023, President Biden completely lost his shit on Air Force One, “exploding” with rage at his team during a discussion on immigration because they couldn’t produce obscure data on demand.
The key takeaway is that, “infighting, blame-shifting and indecision” has gotten in the way of fixing the migrant crisis (they created).
In short, Biden and his temper are to blame for the border crisis, and his team is a bunch of morons.
Biden’s fury subsided, and aides scrambled for the information he wanted. People in the meeting later told others in frustration that his winding process and irritability were making it more difficult to reach decisions about the border. –Axios
What’s more, “The rolling chaos along the border has grown to the point that Biden now is embracing immigration policies he ran against in 2020 — such as restricting asylum laws and suggesting he’ll “shut down” the border — as the crisis threatens his re-election.”
According to the report, as the immigration crisis began to slowly build, nobody in the administration wanted to “own” the hot potato issue (heaven forbid Border Czar Kamala Harris get off her knees and imagine what could be, unburdened by her sheer incompetence).
– Susan Rice called HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra a “bitch ass”& “idiot”.
– VP Harris’ team made it clear her responsibilities “began and ended” w/ root causes in just the 3 Northern Triangle counties & Mexico, w/ a former Biden admin official saying Harris has been “at best, ineffective”.
– Mayorkas disagreed with Biden’s 100 day halt on deportations.
– Homeland Security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall displayed inexperience, asked for a memo explaining the difference between refugees & asylum seekers.
– Biden admin has listened to “vocal immigration advocates outside the administration”.
– “The White House generally didn’t want to talk publicly about immigration or the border for much of Biden’s first three years, feeling it would draw attention to a political vulnerability.”
– “Publicly, the White House also initially downplayed jumps in illegal border crossings as normal “ebbs and flows” — even as some internally pushed to acknowledge that the problem was significant.”
The article highlights a combination of infighting, incompetence, and indifference regarding the administration’s handling of the border over the last 3 years.
Rice Fries Kamala
In addition to calling Becerra a “bitch ass,” the clearly more competent Susan Rice and Kamala Harris have apparently been arch rivals ever since Rice was passed over for VP. Via Axios:
The tension between Rice and Harris had origins in the summer of 2020, when both were being vetted for vice president. Rice later told people she thought Harris and her team were partly responsible for opposition research that resulted in negative coverage of Rice.
Rice appeared to others to take pride in being more informed on the border than Harris.
Some Harris aides found Rice to be disrespectful toward the vice president and dismissively referred to the former UN ambassador as just a “staffer.”
Bottom line, America is being led by a man who’s too senile to prosecute, and whose administration is completely dysfunctional.
Franklin Templeton has applied for a spot Ethereum exchange-traded fund, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows.
The asset manager joins BlackRock, Fidelity, Ark and 21Shares, Grayscale, VanEck, Invesco and Galaxy, and Hashdex, who have all submitted applications in recent months.
The filing comes roughly four weeks after Franklin, among nine other issuers, launched a spot bitcoin ETF. Asset management giant BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) have seen the most demand for their funds. Meanwhile, Franklin has had a less successful start, with only roughly $70 million in inflows since launching.
IBIT has attracted over $3.5 billion worth of bitcoin in the past month, while Fidelity has seen roughly $3 billion.
The SEC has so far delayed all decisions to approve an Ethereum ETF, as expected by experts. JP Morgan currently sees a less than 50% chance that such a fund would be approved before May. Although traders from Polymarket, a decentralized prediction platform, seem to be betting, there is a 50% chance that the ETFs will be approved by May 31.
Franklin Templeton, often deemed “old-fashioned,” has made several pushes into crypto in recent years since CEO Jenny Johnson took over the company in 2020. Most recently, on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the asset manager put laser eyes on its logo that features Ben Franklin as a nod to the crypto culture.
The price of ether climbed 5.5% in the last 24 hours, trading near $2,647, while bitcoin (BTC) hit $50,000 on Monday for the first time since late 2021.
House Bill Would Downgrade US-South Africa Ties Over “Anti-Semitic & Anti-Israel Related” Actions
There’s a move in the US House of Representatives to potentially downgrade the United States’ formal relations with South Africa over its case before the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ, or World Court) accusing Israel of “genocide” against Palestinians.
Representatives John James (R) and Jared Moskowitz (D) introduced the US-South Africa Bilateral Relations Review Act early last week. It calls for a “full review” of relations, charging South Africa with “anti-Semitic and anti-Israel-related statements and actions.”
Moskowitz sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the bill is likely to garner bipartisan support, and has already unleashed plenty of controversy.
The bill requires an assessment of whether “South Africa has engaged in activities that undermine United States national security or foreign policy interests” and orders a presidential review of the relationship.
Interestingly the bill calls out South Africa’s questionable ties and dealings with Russia, China, and Iran as well – saying “It is in the national security interest of the US to deter strategic political and security cooperation and information sharing with [China] and Russia.”
It adds in reference to the ruling African National Congress: “The ANC’s foreign policy actions have long ceased to reflect its stated stance of nonalignment, and now directly favor [China], Russia, and Hamas, a known proxy of Iran, and thereby undermine United States national security and foreign policy interests.”
The bill additionally highlights members of the South African government “siding with malign actors, including Hamas.”
The Cyril Ramaphosa government has dismissed the efforts of the US lawmakers, calling it “most unfortunate”.
“It would be most unfortunate for South Africa-US relations if this bill ever sees the light of day,” an official with President Ramaphosa told Bloomberg on Monday. “A lot of the issues raised by the members of Congress are issues that have either been dealt with through our own judicial processes or clarified in public communication.”
So far the ICJ has given the genocide case merit, ruling that Israel must take steps to prevent attacks on Palestinian civilians.
Currently and amid the war and Gaza and ongoing attempts to rescue remaining hostages held by Hamas, Israel is waging a PR campaign to push back against international efforts to boycott, sanction and isolate the Jewish state, which are intensifying.
Could Michael Mann, the inventor of the so-called Hockey Stick graph, be a covert “New Denialist”? Or is there a split happening in the pro-climate change camp?
That’s two readings of Mr. Mann’s latest book “Our Fragile Moment.”
Either being true would be a good thing, and both are even better.
The “new denialists” is a new term coined to describe people who believe that while climate change is real, it is an open question of how much is manmade, and what the policy response should be.
Mr. Mann is not someone whom you would normally associate with such a position.
He has been famous in climate circles since 1998 when, as a newly-minted doctor in geology and geophysics, he was the principal author of Mann, Bradley, and Hughes 1998 (MBH98), also known as the Hockey Stick graph, a paleoclimate reconstruction of 1,000 years of earth’s temperature which showed unprecedented warming in the late 20th century.
It undermined the consensus view which was that temperature fluctuates quite significantly over centuries, and it was probably cooler now than it had been during the Roman climatic optimum and the Medieval warm period.
You may have seen its star role in Al Gore’s agitprop “An Inconvenient Truth” (“agitprop” because the film was ruled by a British court to be unsuitable for showing to school students without accompanying corrections because it contained “nine scientific errors”).
Mr. Gore had the graph on a large backdrop and emphasised the steepness of the blade, and thus the urgent need to stop CO2 emissions, by rising up beside it in a scissor lift while holding a large pointer in his hand.
That graph and successor hockey sticks are the standard bearers (if you’ll forgive me for mixing metaphors) of climate change catastrophism, and they’ve been used to hit (metaphor again) “climate deniers” over the head.
I’ve never had any regard for the hockey stick.
Not only did it purport to erase the consensus on the basis of one reconstruction, but its statistical techniques were shown to produce hockey sticks out of any random data. So it seemed unlikely to be correct.
But on top of that, Mr. Mann did something that is completely impermissible in statistical analysis.
When the proxy data that he was using came into the modern era they clashed with thermometer records. They showed cooling but the thermometers showed warming.
Mr. Mann “fixed” this by abandoning the proxies and splicing actual temperature records in, without revealing the reason.
This is why I call him “Piltdown Mann.”
The one “n” Piltdown Man is a scandal where an amateur paleoanthropologist claimed to have found the “missing link” between man and ape but it was a forgery where a modern human cranium had been combined with an orangutang jaw and teeth.
Mr. Mann’s technique is similarly defective and deceptive.
If the proxies don’t measure real temperature now, how could they be supposed to be measuring real temperature in the past? The whole proxy exercise had obviously failed and should have been abandoned.
If you want a further, very succinct reference on the Hockey Stick, I can only refer you to the judge in the case of Mann v. Simberg and Steyn, currently running in court 132 in the District of Columbia Superior Court. Mr. Mann is suing the two defendants for some very caustic comments about his hockey stick.
Presiding Justice Irving said:
“As to Mr. Steyn, his statements about the bogus, fraudulent nature of the Hockey Stick graph in his mind were substantially and entirely true.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Mann won, and the matter is likely to go on appeal, but the case deserves an essay all of its own, so I will leave that there for the moment.
Not the End of the World?
So I approached the opportunity to review Mr. Mann’s latest book with caution. A man who will mislead his scientific colleagues is likely to be even less reliable with the general public.
I was not disappointed, and at the same time, I was.
On the one hand, some propositions are surely false, while on the other there were insights that are most probably true. And then the final twist, where Mr. Mann showed himself to be relaxed about the near-term prospects for the world, unlike, say, prophets of doom like Greta Thunberg.
This is where he joins the ranks of what is being termed the “new denialists,” which seems to be a term to cover anyone who takes a “Don’t Panic” approach to changes in the climate.
The book is an example of the seductiveness of capitulating to expert opinion. Mr. Mann has a theory of everything, and that is that CO2 is the thermostat that controls Earth’s temperature. Except he occasionally allows for the sun to have a role at times through Milankovitch cycles.
Unlike most climate scientists, he understands geology and has a long-term view of the world, which means there are a lot of weeds for the amateur to get lost in.
My advice is to read the book, and then go and search out some contrary views.
The future might be all speculation, but once you get further back than yesterday’s dinner, the past can be just as speculative.
Maybe CO2 is a genuine thermostat, but then how do you explain this graph where the earth can be quite cold with high concentrations of CO2 and warm with low concentrations?
Mr. Mann deals with some of this by the concept of Earth System Sensitivity, which is the idea that there is a certain amount of inertia in the earth system and it may take quite a time for changes to manifest.
He posits that sensitivity may be higher in interglacials, and lower during glacials, partly a result of the fact that ice sheets, which dominate glacials, reflect a lot of sunlight and therefore act to keep temperature low, despite changes in CO2 pushing temperature in the other direction.
Ice sheets therefore melt very slowly causing temperature to also warm very slowly.
That brake on temperature change doesn’t exist when most of the ice sheets have melted, as they have today, so warming can be more instantaneous.
Perhaps.
I think it needs a lot more research but do please delve into the book—it has a wealth of detail which is hard to convey accurately, or at all, in a short review.
And definitely read the last chapter where I will let Mr. Mann speak for himself:
“But breathless claims of imminent climate-driven ‘human extinction’ and ‘runaway warming’ are both scientifically unsupportable and unhelpful.”
Let’s Do This Properly
I’ve always been a “new denialist,” or if not always, since somewhere in the 90s.
Manmade climate change is a fact, to the extent that emissions of CO2 created by us have some effect on the climate. But to what extent is an open question, as is what to do about it.
What is certain is that the cost to human life of precipitately stopping the use of fossil fuels is immeasurably higher than any benefit.
We rely on them not just for electricity and transport, but for steel, plastics, glass, explosives, and fertilisers, without which it would be impossible to sustain the 10 billion or so humans who will live on this earth by the end of this century.
If we stopped all that tomorrow, how many humans could the earth support? 500 million? Take that figure from 10 billion, and that’s how many billions you would kill.
It would be wise to transition away from fossil fuels, and also wise to understand that any transition will be in the order of centuries, not decades.
After all, the first steam engine was developed in 1712, but it wasn’t until the early 20th century that it became dominant in sailing technology. Internal combustion engines have been around since 1860, but they are still developing.
Why should the decarbonised economy take only a matter of decades?
But to have a rational debate it requires rational premises all around, and this book is a good contribution to it.
And hopefully, it reflects a broader recognition amongst realists on the more climate-catastrophic end of the debate that if everything is a crisis, people will become so worn out that eventually, nothing is a crisis, because what’s the point, we can’t do anything about it?
Crisis overload.
If Mr. Mann can help to cool the debate, then I’m happy to have his support, even if his science might be less than rigorous.
“Our Fragile Moment: how lessons from the Earth’s past can help us survive the climate crisis” is published by Scribe and retails for AU$35.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.
Ukraine Anti-Conscription Protests Emerge As Zelensky Hunts For Manpower
In a sign of things to come, anti-conscription protests have begun popping up in Ukraine, and crucially even in areas seen as generally supportive of Zelensky’s war effort against Russia. This comes as the Zelensky government has for several weeks now been teasing the likelihood of a major mobilization, as the military is in dire need of hundreds of thousands of more able-bodied troops.
Currently, a controversial mobilization bill is currently slowly making its away through parliament. It seeks to reduce the age limit of conscription from 27 to 25 while also increasing the penalties for those failing to register. But it remains that as the Washington Post has reported, Ukraine’s forces are facing a severe shortage of troops after suffering high casualties over the last two years. “The Ukrainian military is facing a critical shortage of infantry, leading to exhaustion and diminished morale on the front line,” the Post wrote.
“In interviews across the front line, nearly a dozen soldiers and commanders [said] that personnel deficits were their most critical problem now, as Russia has regained the offensive initiative on the battlefield and is stepping up its attacks,’ the report continued.
In a rarity, The New York Times on Sunday detailed a protest that popped up over the weekend, crucially in a region of Ukraine known to have high support for the war. The report details the following:
A crowd angry about the draft blocked a road outside a western Ukrainian village last week in a rowdy confrontation with drivers and the police that illustrated the political risks of expanding mobilization.
Villages in the west have been a primary source of soldiers for the Ukrainian army, and support for the war has been higher in the country’s west than overall in Ukraine. But the loss of male loved ones has taken a toll on many families.
The roadblock took place on Tuesday in the village of Kosmach, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, and began with unfounded rumors in local chat groups that draft officials were coming to find the village’s remaining men, the police said in a statement. About a hundred women blocked a road, and the protest turned violent when they mistook a woman from a neighboring village for a draft official, police officers said.
The woman, Ivanna Vandzhurak, wrote in a Facebook post that the crowd had yelled that she was a “spotter” for the local military recruitment office. The accusation echoed widespread worry in Ukrainian society that spies in their midst, known as spotters, are helping Russia identify missile targets, but in this case, the source of the anxiety was the military recruitment system.
The fact that 100 women led a protest in a western Ukrainian region known for its strong patriotism is a sign of likely bigger similar protests in other parts of the country, as the mobilization bill continues being debated in parliament.
🇺🇦 In Ukraine, tensions are rising between civilians and conscription officers. In the Lvov region, another brawl occurred between conscription officers and a local guy.
In Drohobych, a representative of the conscription office beat up a local resident. According to media… pic.twitter.com/KTTGB3Sf60
One observer has written of the tense state of things all across the war-ravaged country:
The mobilizers have long been competing in running, wrestling, and fistfights with potential conscripts, often taking advantage of their numerical superiority. After all, for ordinary Ukrainians, there is nothing scarier than being sent to the front, so they are ready to fight with conscription officers for their freedom and lives to the end.
The question of how to most effectively call up more manpower to the frontlines was reportedly a key issue in the rift between President Zelensky and his chief of the armed forces Gen. Valery Zaluzhny. Zelensky has since fired the popular General Zaluzhny and appointed Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky in order to set a new direction.
In the meantime, the below widely circulating photograph has resulted in speculation that there could still yet be the potential of a near-future coup attempt by far-right elements in the military, in support of the now sidelined Zaluzhny…
The NY Times observes, “The plans for calling up more soldiers to fight in grim trench warfare was something nobody in Ukraine’s military or civilian leadership wanted to be associated with.” Troops which had been called up from the very start of the war have in many cases expressed anger at having done their duty, only to be forced to stay in combat past their military service end date.
Washington is set to proceed with a $23 billion sale of F-16 warplanes, missiles, and bombs to Turkey followingAnkara’s acceptance of Sweden’s NATO bid.
The sale would see as many as 40 of the latest-gen Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70/72 aircraft, 79 upgrade kits, and hundreds of bombs and missiles toward the NATO ally’s fleet.
US ambassador to Turkey Jeff Flake described the sale as a “great step forward.” He said, “Turkiye’s F-16 fleet is critical to NATO’s strength, ensuring future interoperability among Allies.” The sale was approved by the Biden administration two weeks ago.
F-16 sales to Turkey were tied to Sweden’s acceptance to becoming a member of the NATO military alliance, something that hinged on Turkey and Hungary’s final approval following months-long delays. But Bloomberg has still noted that “strains remain over Turkey’s use of Russian air defenses.”
Turkey accepted Sweden’s bid last month, ending a 20-month delay. Now, the Scandinavian nation only has Budapest in its way.
“We support NATO enlargement to improve the alliance’s deterrence efforts […] We hope Finland and Sweden’s attitude towards fighting terrorism sets an example for our other allies,” head of parliament’s foreign affairs commission and ruling AK Party member, Fuat Oktay, said previously.
Ankara’s procurement of the newer F-16 would allow it to replace its older F-4 jets and modernize NATO’s largest F-16 fleet after the US, as the intergovernmental military alliance is conducting massive military exercises.
On January 18, NATO announced that it would hold its largest military exercise since the Cold War, dubbed “Steadfast Defender 2024.” This would include all 31 member states, including future-member Sweden.
#BüyükelçiFlake: “Kongre’nin bu hafta, Türkiye’nin 40 yeni ve 79 modernize edilmiş F-16 uçağı satın almasını onaylama kararı ileriye doğru atılmış önemli bir adımdır. Türkiye’nin F-16 filosu, NATO’nun gücü açısından hayati önem taşımakta, Müttefikler’in gelecekte birlikte… pic.twitter.com/4r8kPssQ5j
The military exercise would involve 90,000 troops, at least 1,100 combat vehicles, 80 warplanes, and 50 warships.
“Exercise Steadfast Defender 2024 will be the largest NATO exercise in decades, with participation from approximately 90,000 forces from all 31 Allies and our good partner Sweden,” Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) General Christopher Cavoli said.
