Navy Admits DOD Will Shell Out Funds for Obscure Environmental Initiative with No Impact on Military Readiness

Navy Cadets

A little-known environmental provision in the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has no impact on military operations, but will instead serve to “protect the native vegetation,” a Navy spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement Tuesday.

The nearly $884 billion defense bill passed by the U.S. Senate Wednesday includes an initiative to “manage, control and interdict the coconut rhinoceros beetle” — an invasive species of insect that bore holes into the canopies of palm trees — “on military installations in Hawaii.” By the Navy’s own admission, the initiative’s purpose is to preserve vegetation, and thus is effectively unrelated to the Department of Defense’s (DOD) stated mission “to provide the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation’s security.”

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‘Further Away than It’s Ever Been’: Vast Majority of U.S. Adults Believe the American Dream Is Dead, Poll Shows

Home Buyer

Only about a third of U.S. adults believe the American dream is still alive, a Wall Street Journal / NORC poll published Wednesday found.

A survey of 2,501 people conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute twelve years ago found more than half of respondents believed the American dream “still holds true,” but now only a third feel that way, according to a recent WSJ/NORC poll of 1,502 adults. The study also found an increasingly large gap between people’s economic goals and what they think is actually attainable — a trend that was consistent across gender and party lines, but was especially common amongst younger generations.

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