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Battle over Space Command HQ location heats up as lawmakers press new Air Force secretary
Years after the first Trump administration moved to designate Alabama as the home of a permanent Space Command headquarters (HQ), the political tug-of-war for the base continues.
Colorado Republicans are urging the president to rethink the decision while Alabama lawmakers insist it will and should move forward.
After his May 13 confirmation, new Air Force Secretary Troy Meink can now expect a lot of calls from Capitol Hill pulling him in different directions over the HQ.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said he had already discussed the matter with him.
«I look forward to his recommendation that he concur with the last two secretaries of the Air Force and recommend to Huntsville,» he said. «And I fully expect, based on our conversation, that’s going to be what happens.»
The Space Force’s home for the time being — Colorado Springs, Colorado — makes sense from the money that has already been invested in setting up shop there, according to Rep. Jeff Crank, R-Colo., whose district encompasses the current HQ.
«It would mean $2 billion in savings to leave it where it is,» Crank told Fox News Digital, pointing to savings from not having to build a new HQ building.
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President Donald Trump announced plans to move headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama, in his first term — but former President Joe Biden undid those plans when he came into office.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said he had already discussed the matter with the new Air Force secretary. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Space Command has operated out of Peterson Space Force base in Colorado Springs since its 2019 inception. The command is responsible for military operations in space and will play a major role in the Golden Dome project.
Crank argues that geographically, Colorado makes more sense — it is also home to Northern Command, and the two will need to coordinate over Trump’s new Golden Dome missile defense project.
«They’ve got to be seamless in their efforts to communicate,» said Crank. «We don’t want any delay in getting Golden Dome up and running.»
He argued that Space Command HQ, nestled into Cheyenne Mountain, is already «one of the most secure facilities» in the country. Being in the middle of the U.S., he added, makes it harder for enemies to attack.
«From the standpoint of survivability, having that as an asset right there as well is, is really important.»
Rogers brushed off the complaints from his Colorado counterparts and argued Alabama had won fair and square.
«They’re just doing their job, you know, they don’t want to see it leave,» said Rogers. But, «they lost two nationwide competitions. It’s not me saying it should be in Huntsville.»
Then-President Joe Biden, pictured greeting Air Force Thunderbirds pilots at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado, moved to keep the base in Colorado. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
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He argued that right now, the command is spread out across four to five different buildings, some of which are outside the base perimeter.
«None of them were built for classified operations,» he said. «They just kind of make it work.»
Rogers pointed to a recent Defense Department inspector general (IG) report examining Biden’s 2023 decision not to move the headquarters. That report found that then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall recommended that SPACECOM go to Redstone Arsenal, near Huntsville, Alabama, because the move would save $462 million.
However, then SPACECOM Commander, Gen. James Dickinson, wanted to keep the permanent HQ in Colorado due to Air Force findings that the Alabama option would not be operational for three to four years. Dickinson and SPACECOM officers also worried that more than half of the highly trained civilian staff in Colorado would quit rather than move to Alabama for the job.
«USSPACECOM leadership anticipated that the loss of civilian personnel might occur much sooner than (the Air Force) predicated and that USSPACECOM would be unable to secure the manpower investments needed to mitigate the impact of that loss on the command’s readiness,» the report states.
Space Command headquarters. (Space Command/Petty Officer 1st Class John Wagner)
However, Rogers argued, Colorado has had manpower issues as well.
«The reason why Secretary Kendall didn’t concur with them and recommended that it still be moved was that over 300 of the current jobs in Colorado Springs couldn’t be filled,» he said. «They had to contract them out.»
Crank argued that the cost findings in the IG report were flawed because it assumed Colorado would have to build a new HQ building, which he says it would not.
«We don’t need to build a new headquarters building,» he said. «There is one there. If you say you need to build a new headquarters building, then I think it tips it in the favor of Alabama from a cost perspective by about $400 million.»
«But if you don’t do that, and we don’t need it, already have a headquarters building there, it saves the taxpayers $2 billion,» he said.
The IG report said it «could not determine» why Kendall never made a formal announcement decision for the SPACECOM transition after the September 2022 completion of an environmental impact assessment of the planned headquarters site in Alabama.
Without a formal announcement, SPACECOM was able to declare full operational capability in Colorado, the report said.
Rogers said the IG report proved the Biden administration’s move was political, and predicted in April that Trump would formally name Alabama as the home of the Space Force within the month.
However, Crank, along with GOP Reps. Lauren Boebert, Gabe Evans and Jeff Hurd, wrote to Trump and warned him that the move would affect readiness.
«Moving the command would disrupt these established capabilities and partnerships, further diminishing our preparedness to face evolving threats,» they wrote in a letter dated April 8.
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However, Rogers seems confident the move will go forward.
«There’s absolutely no national security implications for moving it,» he said.
«It needs to be in a permanent headquarters, and it needs to be inside the fence. All that’s going to happen in Huntsville.»
Air Force,Air And Space,Colorado,Alabama
La madre de Chen Tianming ve la televisión en el primer piso de su casa en Xingyi. Foto: Andrea Verdelli/The New York Times
Un mercado de productos agrícolas entre los rascacielos residenciales a los que se mudaron los vecinos de Chen. Foto: Andrea Verdelli/The New York TimesINTERNACIONAL
Federal judge blocks Trump administration from defunding some Planned Parenthood facilities
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A judge on Monday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from stripping some Medicaid funds from Planned Parenthood after Congress and President Donald Trump agreed to partially defund the nonprofit through passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Judge Indira Talwani of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts said in her order partially granting a preliminary injunction that the bill unconstitutionally punishes Planned Parenthood member organizations that do not provide abortions.
The injunction will risk «at most minimal harm—financial or otherwise» to the Trump administration while the lawsuit proceeds, Talwani, an Obama appointee, wrote.
The judge’s order appears to apply to some but not all Planned Parenthood facilities. The nonprofit said in a statement that it viewed Talwani’s order as a partial win and remained «hopeful» that the judge would take further judicial action down the line.
«This isn’t over,» the organization said. «While we’re grateful that the court recognized the harm caused by this law, we’re disappointed that not all members were granted the necessary relief today.»
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Pro-life demonstrators gather in front of the Supreme Court building as the Court hears oral arguments over Medina vs Planned Parenthood in Washington D.C. (Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
Talwani’s order arose from a lawsuit brought by Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a massive budget bill that passed Congress this month with no Democrat support. Trump signed the bill into law on July 4.
A provision in the bill stripped Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood, which the nonprofit said could force it to close about 200 of its 600 facilities and deprive about half of its customers, more than one million people, of services that do not include abortion.
Planned Parenthood attorneys noted in court filings that Medicaid typically does not cover abortion.
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A Planned Parenthood sign (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
The attorneys argued that the bill would cause cancer and sexually transmitted infections to go undetected, especially for low-income people, and that more unplanned pregnancies would occur because of a lack of contraception access. They said the consequences of losing Medicaid funding «will be grave.»
Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys had previously argued in court filings that the purpose of the budget provision was to stop «federal subsidies for Big Abortion» by freezing federal funds for certain Medicaid recipients who provide abortions. Weakening Planned Parenthood has been one of the pro-life movement’s leading priorities since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Talwani granted a temporary restraining order two weeks ago in favor of Planned Parenthood. The judge initially offered no explanation for her decision, a move that led to widespread backlash among Republicans who described it as judicial overreach. Days later, Talwani offered more context in a subsequent order.
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Anti-abortion activists march across the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol during the 50th annual March for Life rally on January 20, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The preliminary injunction will partially leave in place the pause on defunding Planned Parenthood indefinitely, but the Trump administration is likely to appeal the order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
The judge noted that her injunction applied to Planned Parenthood entities that do not provide abortion services or receive less than $800,000 in annual Medicaid reimbursements.
DOJ attorneys had previously argued to the court that blocking a measure that was passed by Congress and signed by the president was an extraordinary move and unjustified.
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«Beyond the futility of the claims on the merits, Planned Parenthood fails to demonstrate imminent irreparable harm to justify an injunction, asserting only classically reparable economic injury and irrelevant potential harm to patients, who are third parties not before this Court,» DOJ attorneys wrote.
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“La democracia está amenazada”: la advertencia de Boric en una cumbre de mandatarios de izquierda
El presidente de Chile, Gabriel Boric, aseguró este lunes que “la democracia está amenazada y esa amenaza no se reduce solamente a la fuerza militar”, durante la inauguración en Santiago de una cumbre que reúne a sus pares progresistas de España, Brasil, Colombia y Uruguay.
“Hoy, en muchas partes del mundo, la democracia está amenazada y esa amenaza no se reduce solamente a la fuerza militar, como sucedió en América Latina durante la segunda mitad del siglo 20, sino que hay elementos más sutiles que atentan contra ella y que terminan naturalizándose”, indicó Boric al inicio del encuentro bautizado “Democracia Siempre”.
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Entre esos elementos, el mandatario chileno destacó “la desinformación, el extremismo de cualquier signo, el avance del odio, la corrupción, la concentración del poder y una desigualdad que socava la confianza en lo público y el estado de derecho”.
Boric recibió este lunes en el palacio de La Moneda a los jefes de Estado o de Gobierno de España, Pedro Sánchez; Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Colombia, Gustavo Petro; y Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi, para debatir sobre el avance ultra y los autoritarismos.
Las propuestas que resulten de la cumbre se presentarán en otra reunión que se dará en el marco del 80° período de sesiones de la Asamblea General de Naciones Unidas, prevista para septiembre, en Nueva York.
Gabriel Boric cuestionó el extremismo
En su discurso, Boric afirmó: “Algunos, de diferentes signos políticos, presentan el extremismo y el autoritarismo como una solución eficiente, como si bastara solamente con mano dura o con acallar voces, prohibir el disenso, ridiculizar al adversario como una vía para resolver los problemas de fondo”.
Este camino, añadió, “solo asegura retrocesos, margina las mayorías, impone la ley del más fuerte, amenaza a los más vulnerables y sacrifica la tranquilidad por la incertidumbre”.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva y gabriel Boric se saludan en el Palacio de la Moneda, en Santiago (Foto: REUTERS/Pablo Sanhueza)
Boric pidió “identificar esas amenazas y no sencillamente apuntarlas con el dedo” y aseguró que “el objetivo de esta cumbre es remarcar la esperanza y ofrecer una alternativa a esas visiones de mundo”.
Además, anunció que los mandatarios de México, Honduras, Reino Unido, Canadá, Sudáfrica, Dinamarca y Australia decidieron unirse a la alianza internacional en defensa de la democracia.
Lula afirmó que el sistema político cayó en el descrédito
En la cumbre, Lula da Silva dijo que “el sistema político y los partidos cayeron en descrédito”, lo que a su juicio fortaleció a la ultraderecha global.
“En este momento en que el extremismo intenta reeditar prácticas intervencionistas, precisamos actuar juntos”, dijo Lula.
Tras una reunión a puerta cerrada en el palacio de La Moneda, los cinco comparecieron ante la prensa, ocasión en la que Lula denunció que el mundo vive “una nueva ofensiva antidemocrática” que, desde su punto de vista, los Gobiernos progresistas deben enfrentar “con acciones concretas y urgentes”.
A su vez, Petro dijo que el progresismo tiene que “encender la luz cuando las tinieblas llegan y empiezan a atemorizar el alma”.
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Petro aseguró que durante el encuentro los líderes “profundizaron aún más nuestros acuerdos básicos y no tan básicos que tienen que ver con la crisis climática, la inteligencia artificial, la paz del mundo, rehacer la multilateralidad o defender palabras tan básicas como la libertad y la democracia”.
En tanto, Orsi pidió “aterrizar la propuesta de democracia a cuestiones que los pueblos sientan”.
“En la convicción de poner a la democracia por delante y como centro de la futura discusión, muchos más países se van a unir si el objetivo es fortalecer esta forma de convivencia que tiene de tan lejos y tantas vidas y sacrificios nos ha costado”, afirmó.
(Con información de EFE y AFP)
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