By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
The Pentagon's most expensive weapons system program ever has taken a key step toward becoming operational, despite cost overruns and scheduling delays that have hampered its production and looming budget cuts that imperil its deployment.
Senate Democrats rejected a Republican effort to force defense contractors to send out notices of possible job layoffs four days before the election, calling the move politically driven and purely speculative based on looming spending cuts.
The leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee are suggesting that Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta rushed a decision to develop the Marine Corps version of the next-generation strike fighter jet.
A U.S. commitment to provide India with top-of-the-line technology as India modernizes its armed forces and builds its own defense industry is likely to cause unease in Pakistan, which also wants U.S. equipment to prosecute its war against terrorists.
