The Armed Services Committee won't include two rounds of base closures requested by the Pentagon in its Defense authorization bill.

Lockheed Martin CEO Bob Stevens, who has been at the helm of the defense giant since 2004, is stepping down at the end of the year, the company said Thursday.

Stevens will be replaced by current President and Chief Operating Officer Chris Kubasik.

Stevens will remain at Lockheed Martin as chairman through January 2014, subject to approval by the shareholders and board.

Obama’s team is readying to attack Romney’s foreign policy, with a new video and speech by Biden later today.

In an address Wednesday, the rising conservative star sought to revive former President Reagan’s foreign policy legacy in the GOP.

A variety of interests lobbied on the dreaded budget sequestration last quarter, according to lobbying disclosure records.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said Wednesday that he thought Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "should have stood up" to Afghan President Hamid Karzai when he denied the congressman entry to the country because of critical comments he made about the country's government.

"I think that she should have stood up for that, but however, she asked me to do that and I complied with her wishes," Rohrabacher told CNN. "I thought she was asking me in a respectful way, but she was having to deal with this corrupt prima donna who heads that country and realizing that, look, members of Congress should be over there to see if the dynamics are such that we're not just wasting people's lives and money, and there are changes that need to happen for us to be able to succeed."

After getting bashed by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for being “woefully unprepared” Wednesday, Pentagon briefers could get another chance to explain the military side of the Colombia prostitution scandal in front of a different committee.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta Wednesday asking for a committee staff briefing from the Defense Department on its Colombia investigation.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made a personal pitch for Brazil to pick Boeing when it decides on a contract for fighter jets worth at least $4 billion.

Speaking in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday, Panetta said that the purchase of the F/A-18 Boeing-made Super Hornet fighters would give Brazil access to new technology sharing and would “transform” the relationship between Brazil’s defense and aerospace industries and U.S. companies.

If the Obama administration wants Congress to finance a new missile shield in Eastern Europe, it will have to first get NATO to agree to foot part of the bill.