Stefanik demands Pentagon start spending missile defense money (Edited)

Winter Realms pulls holiday lights event out of Lake George

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Editor’s Note: The first version of The Front Page sent Monday morning had some duplicated paragraphs.

The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported last year that the Department of Defense "lacks comprehensive guidance for sustaining Missile Defense System elements."

That doesn't sound good.

The GAO basically said no one is in charge of deciding what comes next or what is needed when it comes to missile defense because "There is no approach for prioritizing and making department-wide sustainment decisions."

It finally concluded: "Absent comprehensive guidance, including a responsible oversight entity and a process for prioritizing and addressing sustainment challenges, DOD lacks reasonable assurance that it can sustain MDS (Missile Defense System) elements and infrastructure to address missile defense threats.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, surely must be privy to this information. After all, she has been advocating for a third missile defense system to be based at Fort Drum in Watertown for years.

The trouble with the billions of dollars we spend on national defense each year is that members of Congress see it as their best shot at economic development. There has not been a congressional candidate in upstate New York who has not supported the presence of Fort Drum.

So while the military was kicking around the idea of a third missile defense system, Rep. Stefanik made sure to make a full-court press to have it built at Fort Drum. it could be worth billions of dollars in construction for the region as well as some 600 permanent well-paying jobs.

The holdup is the lack of consensus at the Pentagon whether a new site was even needed.

Congress still went ahead and funded $10 million in next year's budget to get the project in Fort Drum rolling, but Rep. Stefanik didn't like what she heard from Lt. Gen. Heath Collins last week when he testified before Congress.

It seems to mirror what the GAO had reported last year: Nobody was really sure if it was needed.

So Rep. Stefanik dashed off a message to Lt. Gen. Collins insisting he start spending that $10 million in her district as appropriated.

When you dig a little deeper into the missile defense, you begin to understand the Pentagon's hesitation. The missile defense systems we have are not fool proof in any way. Our policy over the years has been based more on deterrence. The more nukes we had, the less likely our enemies would think of attacking us.

You'd think those photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be a deterrence, too.

The experts seem to believe they can mostly stop a small scale nuclear attack, but a large-scale attack like what Russia is capable of making is still going to be catastrophic.

Consider this insight I found in an article in Scientific American called "Who would take the brunt of an attack on U.S. nuclear missile silos?" by Sebastian Phillippe where he explained that our large number of land-based missiles as fixed targets was meant as a way to "exhaust the enemy's resources."

I guess that means we would be able launch more missiles than the other guys could land.

None of this is encouraging if you believe the human race has a future.

So while most of us have not seriously thought about nuclear Armageddon since we were hiding under our desks in grammar school, the reality is that many believe it could be a possibility.

"Attacking a missile silo requires detonating one or two nuclear warheads, with explosive yields equivalent to 100,000 tons of TNT, close to the buried target. The resulting nuclear explosions will generate gargantuan fireballs that will vaporize everything in their surroundings and produce destructive shock waves capable of wrecking the missiles in their launch tubes. Because the warheads will detonate close to the ground, the nuclear fireballs will suck in soil and other debris and mix it with radioactive bomb effluents as they rise in the air. About 10 minutes after detonation, the mixture of debris and fission products will form miles-high radioactive mushroom clouds, which will then be dispersed by high-altitude winds, leading to fallout on downwind areas."

So while Rep. Stefanik's insistence that a third missile defense system be created at the edge of the Adirondacks, the reality is those defensive missiles won't keep us totally safe either.

Maybe the more important question we should be considering - including Rep. Stefanik - is who would want to be living in the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.

Phillippe cited studies that fallout from a nuclear attack on the missile fields could travel hundreds of miles down wind. Or right toward us here in upstate New York - like acid rain did - and that no locale in the United States would escape deadly radiation.

Phillippe developed his own models to show what the aftermath of a nuclear attack would look like:

According to my models, a concerted nuclear attack on the existing U.S. silo fields—in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana and North Dakota—would annihilate all life in the surrounding regions and contaminate fertile agricultural land for years. Minnesota, Iowa and Kansas would also probably face high levels of radioactive fallout. Acute radiation exposure alone would cause several million fatalities across the U.S.—if people get advance warning and can shelter in place for at least four days. Without appropriate shelter, that number could be twice as high. Because of great variability in wind directions, the entire population of the contiguous U.S. and the most populated areas of Canada, as well as the northern states of Mexico, would be at risk of lethal fallout—more than 300 million people in total. The inhabitants of the U.S. Midwest and of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario in Canada could receive outdoor whole-body doses of radiation several times higher than the minimum known to result in certain death.

So while I understand that Rep. Stefanik's objective here is to get her slice of the Pentagon's gargantuan pie, maybe the the more important goal is finding a way to avoid ever using nuclear warheads in the first place because no matter how many defensive missiles we have, we will never be entirely safe.

While Winter Realms will be departing Lake George, Winter’s Dream is returning at Fort William Henry.

Winter Realms out

Winter Realms, which originally brought the Ice Castles to Lake George and went with a more weather-friendly showcase of holiday lights this year, announced it was pulling out of Lake George to concentrate on locales with colder weather.

Bet, you never thought you would never hear that?

The announcement was surprising since the Warren County Coalition announced that the combination of Winter Realms and the Winter's Dream light show at Fort William Henry had driven millions of dollars of business to Lake George this winter and nearly 8,000 hotel stays.

Those figures still seem a little hard to believe.

While this may be a setback for Lake George, it also open up the Wood Park for something else.

Lake George already does a nice job decorating its visitor's center, Shepherd Park with other displays along the light. Maybe it could concentrate that effort in the Wood Park, bring back the skating rink and make it part of the Winter's Dream spectacle.

This might be a great opportunity for Warren County.

Justice lacks humanity

The Supreme Court's conservative majority has clearly made it clear it will protect Second Amendment rights even if it puts bump stocks in the hands of crazed gunmen.

So it was surprising that the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 this week that anyone with an order of protection against them cannot own a firearm. The case in question was about a Texas man who twice threatened women with his gun and five times fired his weapon in public.

Clarence Thomas believed this man deserved to keep his weapons.

He was the one dissenting vote.

In every profession, there are people who are unqualified to be there. Clarence Thomas is unqualified to be on the Supreme Court. His ethical violations indicate he has been bought and paid for and his voting record rarely makes any sense.

He is a blight on our system of justice.

This was the original home for The Post-Star on Park and Glen Streetss.

Walking tours

I did my second Chapman Museum walking tour of Glens Falls Friday - Behind the Business Tour - and was thrilled to get some information about where the old Post-Star building was downtown.

I knew the approximate location on Park and Glen, but was never entirely sure. While on the tour, another man told me he remembered delivering the Glens Falls afternoon newspaper and waiting for the bundles of newspapers to come up from the printing press in the basement before delivering them on his bike.

The turnout was good for both tours I was on so make sure to reserve a spot in advance. Several people who were on the first tour with me were on this one as well. I think we have the beginnings of a club.

The Chapman Museum walking tours will continue every Friday at 11 a.m. throughout the summer.

The next tour is Friday, June 28 and is new this year - More of Glens Falls.

This tour will look more closely at the historic buildings, businesses and people that shaped Glens Falls. Park at the Chapman Museum and meet inside. Tours are $15 a person - $10 for members. To register call 518 793-2826.

Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.