Exactly how much is California spending to combat homelessness — and is it working?
It turns out, no one knows. That’s the result of a much-anticipated statewide audit released Tuesday, which calls into question the state’s ability to track and analyze its spending on homelessness services.
The state doesn’t have current information on the ongoing costs and results of its homelessness programs because the agency tasked with gathering that data — the California Interagency Council on Homelessness — has analyzed no spending past 2021, according to the report by State Auditor Grant Parks. Three of the five state programs the audit analyzed — including the state’s main homelessness funding source — didn’t even produce enough data for Parks to determine whether they were effective or not.
The audit also analyzed homelessness services in San Jose and San Diego, finding both cities failed to thoroughly account for their spending or measure the success of many of their programs.
“The lack of transparency in our current approach to homelessness is pretty frightening,” said Assemblymember Josh Hoover, a Republican from Folsom who co-authored the request for the audit.
To the Democrats running the program, that “lack of transparency” is a feature, not a bug.
That means state policymakers have little data to go on when they make funding decisions related to what has become one of California’s most dire challenges.
“The State Auditor’s findings highlight the significant progress made in recent years to address homelessness at the state level, including the completion of a statewide assessment of homelessness programs,” the Interagency Council on Homelessness wrote in an emailed statement. “But it also underscores a need to continue to hold local governments accountable, who are primarily responsible for implementing these programs and collecting data on outcomes that the state can use to evaluate program effectiveness.”
As the homelessness crisis has intensified, California under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s leadership allocated an unprecedented $24 billion to address homelessness and housing during the last five fiscal years, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
Nine state agencies administered more than 30 programs aimed at preventing or reducing homelessness. Some of those programs did such a poor job tracking their outcomes that it’s impossible to tell if they’ve been successful, according to the audit, which marks the first such large-scale accounting of the state’s homelessness spending.
The report evaluated five state homelessness programs and found two “likely” are cost-effective. Newsom’s signature Homekey program helps cities and counties turn hotels and other buildings into homeless housing at an average cost of $144,000 per unit (in the program’s first round), compared to the $380,000-$570,000 it would cost for new construction. The CalWORKS Housing Support Program, which gives financial help to families who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, also saves the state money because it’s much cheaper to help someone stay housed than it is to help them find housing once they become homeless.
The auditor found the CalWORKS program spent an average of $12,000-$22,000 per household, while a single chronically homeless person can cost taxpayers as much as $50,000 per year.
Funny how Democrats are always willing to spend more to help drug-addicted transients than many taxpaying citizens make in a year.
But for three other programs, the state hasn’t collected enough data for the auditor to make an assessment: the State Rental Assistance Program (which helped people pay rent and other expenses during the COVID-19 pandemic), the Encampment Resolution Fund (a program Newsom launched to help cities clean up specific encampments) and the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program (the state’s main source of general homeless funding, also known as HHAP).
“Fundamentally, the audit depicts a bit of a data desert,” Sen. Dave Cortese, a Democrat from Santa Clara County who joined Hoover in asking for the audit, said during a media call.
For example, nearly one-third of people who left placements funded by the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention program left for “unknown” destinations, according to the auditor’s analysis of round-one funding in Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties. That ambiguous data makes it impossible to tell if the program has been successful, the auditor wrote. Even so, the state authorized billions of dollars for four additional rounds of funding.
I’m sure the programs are considered a “success” by Democrats because they provide a giant bucket to dole out graft and fraud to the leftwing activists working in the Homeless Industrial Complex.
But I have a deep suspicion that things are even worse than we think. Remember the effort to recall Newsom, and how Democrats from across the country sprang immediately to his aid? At the time, Scott Adams said that protecting Newsom was “the top process in the system.” I suspect that California’s homeless programs are not just a channel for graft and fraud to left-wing activists in California, but a way to rake off money directly to Democratic Party campaigns and coffers nationwide. (Though certainly not the only source. Remember how $850 million in the hands of New York City Democratic mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife just sort of magically disappeared?)
If Trump wins in November, a law should be passed allowing federal audits of state social programs that accept federal block grants. Money from the American taxpayer is being siphoned off, and we deserve to know where.
DEI — the identity-obsessed dogma that goes by “diversity, equity, and inclusion” — has now trained Google’s new AI to refuse to draw white people. What’s even more alarming is that it’s also infected the supply chain that makes the chips powering everything from AI to missiles, endangering national security.
The Biden administration recently promised it will finally loosen the purse strings on $39 billion of CHIPS Act grants to encourage semiconductor fabrication in the U.S. But less than a week later, Intel announced that it’s putting the brakes on its Columbus factory. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has pushed back production at its second Arizona foundry. The remaining major chipmaker, Samsung, just delayed its first Texas fab.
This is not the way companies typically respond to multi-billion-dollar subsidies. So what explains chipmakers’ apparent ingratitude? In large part, frustration with DEI requirements embedded in the CHIPS Act.
Commentators have noted that CHIPS and Science Act money has been sluggish. What they haven’t noticed is that it’s because the CHIPS Act is so loaded with DEI pork that it can’t move.
The law contains 19 sections aimed at helping minority groups, including one creating a Chief Diversity Officer at the National Science Foundation, and several prioritizing scientific cooperation with what it calls “minority-serving institutions.” A section called “Opportunity and Inclusion” instructs the Department of Commerce to work with minority-owned businesses and make sure chipmakers “increase the participation of economically disadvantaged individuals in the semiconductor workforce.”
The department interprets that as license to diversify. Its factsheet asserts that diversity is “critical to strengthening the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem,” adding, “Critically, this must include significant investments to create opportunities for Americans from historically underserved communities.”
The department does not call speed critical, even though the impetus for the CHIPS Act is that 90 percent of the world’s advanced microchips are made in Taiwan, which China is preparing to annex by 2027, maybe even 2025.
Handouts abound. There’s plenty for the left—requirements that chipmakers submit detailed plans to educate, employ, and train lots of women and people of color, as well as “justice-involved individuals,” more commonly known as ex-cons. There’s plenty for the right—veterans and members of rural communities find their way into the typical DEI definition of minorities. There’s even plenty for the planet: Arizona Democrats just bragged they’ve won $15 million in CHIPS funding for an ASU project fighting climate change.
That project is going better for Arizona than the actual chips part of the CHIPS Act. Because equity is so critical, the makers of humanity’s most complex technology must rely on local labor and apprentices from all those underrepresented groups, as TSMC discovered to its dismay.
Tired of delays at its first fab, the company flew in 500 employees from Taiwan. This angered local workers, since the implication was that they weren’t skilled enough. With CHIPS grants at risk, TSMC caved in December, agreeing to rely on those workers and invest more in training them. A month later, it postponed its second Arizona fab.
Now TSMC has revealed plans to build a second fab in Japan. Its first, which broke ground in 2021, is about to begin production. TSMC has learned that when the Japanese promise money, they actually give it, and they allow it to use competent workers. TSMC is also sampling Germany’s chip subsidies, as is Intel.
Intel is also building fabs in Poland and Israel, which means it would rather risk Russian aggression and Hamas rockets over dealing with America’s DEI regime. Samsung is pivoting toward making its South Korean homeland the semiconductor superpower after Taiwan falls.
To be fair, Intel has had fabs in Israel since since 1996, and Tower Semiconductor has had fabs in Israel since the 1980s. Poland, to the best of my knowledge, has never had a fab.
In short, the world’s best chipmakers are tired of being pawns in the CHIPS Act’s political games. They’ve quietly given up on America. Intel must know the coming grants are election-year stunts — mere statements of intent that will not be followed up. Even after due diligence and final agreements, the funds will only be released in dribs and drabs as recipients prove they’re jumping through the appropriate hoops.
So in the name of embedding the racist poison of social justice, the CHIPS Act, ostensibly designed to increase America’s share of cutting-edge semiconductor manufacturing, is actually driving new fab construction out of America.
Margaret Thatcher said “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money,” but Cuba appears to have gone them one better: Bad policies means that they’re now running out of their own money.
‘There is no money in the banks’: Cubans stand in line since dawn to cash their paychecks.
“There is no money in the banks to pay people, everyone is upset and they haven’t even given us an explanation,” said Leydis Tabares, a Cuban who resides in Camagüey, to Martí Noticias this Friday.
The problem is nationwide, said Cubans consulted from different provinces by our editorial team. The lack of cash in ATMs has caused state workers to be unable to withdraw the salary deposited onto their magnetic cards.
“In Sancti Spíritus, queues start forming since dawn because by nine or ten in the morning there is no cash left. Some employees have had to wait up to 45 days to be able to withdraw,” reported independent journalist Adriano Castañeda.
According to the journalist, the process of banking and the limitation of cash withdrawals is the cause of this crisis. “That system is a disaster,” he opined.
“A general reform is needed in Cuba, of all kinds, social, political, and economic,” commented independent journalist Guillermo del Sol. According to him, many owners of private businesses in the country have stopped depositing cash due to the same restrictions imposed by the regime.
“The money that Micro, Small, and Medium-sized Enterprises (MSMEs) deposited in the bank they couldn’t retrieve, so they stopped depositing money in banks. And since they are the ones carrying the weight of what little works within Cuba, the banks ran out of money. That’s what’s happening right now,” he explained.
So even in communist Cuba, small and medium size business are what keeps the economy running, and the commies are destroying them by withholding their access to their own money. That’s some mighty fine management, Lou.
In Guantánamo, the shortage of money for worker payment affects all sectors and is creating another type of business in the streets.
“Some charge for making the long queues in the early mornings for employees. There are also people who have cash and charge a 10% fee to deliver the amount of money they have on the card,” commented independent journalist Anderlay Guerra Blanco.
“When there’s an ATM with money, the queues are endless,” said opposition member José Rolando Cásares, who resides in Pinar del Río.
Independent journalist Vladimir Turró explained that in the capital, there are even people who line up pointlessly because at dawn, the bank doesn’t supply cash to the ATM.
“We’re talking about people who gather at banks, some even go to sleep at the ATMs, trying to get some cash, and so they spend days trying to withdraw money,” he said.
When Cuba in early August announced it was taking a major step towards electronic banking and a “cashless” society, the offices of fledgling small businesses across the communist-run country were left scrambling to figure out how to respond.
Most alarming to many budding entrepreneurs was a new 5,000 peso ($20) daily cap on cash withdrawals for businesses, one of several measures the government said were aimed at forcing Cubans to do their transactions electronically, via transfer, online payment and bank cards.
So commies limit bank access to a business’s own cash, and they’re shocked that businesses stop depositing it in banks.
Cubans are preparing for a new wave of inflation after the government last week rolled out details of an austerity plan that economists say will touch nearly every facet of the communist-run island’s already flailing economy.
I guess the austerity plan means the usually tactic of just printing more money is off the table.
The measures – which include price and tax increases and cuts in subsidies – will slow a soaring budget deficit forecast to exceed 18% of gross domestic product and set the stage for growth, according to Prime Minister Manuel Marrero.
Authorities have already announced gas at the pump will jump nearly five-fold on Feb. 1. But some economists say less visible government price increases such as on wholesale fuel and moving freight, as well as sales and import taxes, are sure to ignite substantial hikes on most products and services at the retail level.
“In economics, such prices are not increased in one area without affecting others,” Cuban economist Omar Everleny said in an interview in Havana. “And in general they are passed on to consumers. I think they will increase 400% to 500%.”
Reuters spoke with several Cubans in Havana who said prices were already rising following the announcements and in anticipation of the price hikes – and were set to soar further in the coming weeks.
Snip.
Inflation was 30% last year, cooling slightly from 38% in 2022, according to the government. Many economists say those rates fall short of reality as the government does not adequately monitor a booming informal market pegged to an informal exchange rate much higher than the official one.
In Holidays in Hell, P. J. O’Rourke talks about exchanging $480 for a gymbag full of cordobas in Sandinista Nicaragua. “You probably have to take economics over and over again two or three times at Moscow U before you can make cash worth this little.”
Government officials have announced wholesale fuel prices will double next month, freight transportation will jump between 40% and 60% in March and for the private sector import duties will increase five-fold. Private companies will also be charged a new 10% sales tax on wholesale transactions.
So prices are soaring, but people can’t get their own money out of the bank to make ends meet. So Cuba’s communist government has accomplished the rare feat of a liquidity crunch and soaring inflation at the same time.
Happy Ides of March! You might want to avoid knife-wielding Romans today. Trump trial news, lots of Russo-Ukrainian War news, transexual madness starts to recede, and more Disney missteps. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Biden’s proposed budget is going to lower the deficit by $3 trillion. By which he means it will grow by $16 trillion.
Following yesterday’s release of Biden’s $7.3 trillion budget, the Biden administration bragged about lowering the deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade – an average of 0.8% of GDP over that period.
This would consist of roughly $2.6 trillion over 10 years in additional spending programs, offset by around $4.8 trillion in tax increases over the same period. Most of the tax and spending proposals have been included in prior budget proposals from the White House, according to Goldman’s Alec Phillips, however there are several new items.
The budget would increase the corporate alternative minimum tax on book income from 15% to 21%, raising $137 billion over the next decade. It also limits a corporation’s ability to deduct employee pay exceeding $1mm/year, raising $272 billion over 10 years. The largest proposed tax increases include; raising the corporate minimum tax from 21% to 28%, as well as a series of tax increases on high-income earners, including new Medicare taxes, and a new 25% minimum tax on incomes over $100 million, raising $500 billion over the next decade.
Of course, it has zero chance of passing under the current Congress – but that’s not the point.
As one DC strategist wrote in a morning email noted by CNBC’s Brian Sullivan, the budget deficit will still grow by another $16 trillion over the next decade – and that’s with aforementioned tax hikes.
Without them, the deficit grows to $19 trillion.
In short, talk of ‘$3 trillion saved’ is total bullshit in the grand scheme of things, given how much the national debt will grow in the best case scenario.
The judge overseeing the Georgia election-fraud case struck down six counts in the indictment on Wednesday finding that the language in the counts didn’t provide “sufficient detail” for former president Donald Trump and more than a dozen other co-defendants “to prepare their defenses intelligently.”
The counts that Fulton County Superior Court judge Scott McAfee struck down all involved allegations that some of the defendants in the case solicited various Georgia elected officials to violate their oaths of office and to unlawfully appoint pro-Trump presidential electors.
The six counts struck down by McAfee on Wednesday involved Trump, his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Ray Smith and Bob Cheeley. The defendants were accused in the various counts of soliciting elected members of the Georgia house and senate and Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger to violate their oaths “to unlawfully appoint presidential electors.” Trump and Meadows also requested that Raffensperger “unlawfully decertify” the 2020 presidential election, according to two of the counts that McAfee struck down on Wednesday.
Fani Willis ruling: She can stay on the case despite her numerous ethical lapses and bias, but her boytoy Nathan Wade has to go, so he’s stepping down.
“Judge Sets Trial Date for Hunter Biden’s Federal Gun Case.” “U.S. district judge Maryellen Noreika ruled the trial will start on June 3 at a status conference with Hunter Biden’s attorneys and special counsel David Weiss’s team of prosecutors.”
And another one. “Kaluga Oil Facility Hit By Drones.” I know a lot of previous Ukraine drone strikes on oil facilities hit storage tanks. It can be hard to tell with the quality of videos, but in both of these videos, it appears that these recent strikes are hitting either the cracking or fractional distillation towers, which are much higher value targets and more difficult to replace.
The Biden admin knows that US military personnel will not be safe in Gaza, but millions of dollars will be spent to build a pier to send aid that the Gazans don’t even want and that someone in the admin hopes will become a “commercial facility.”
That’s what they think “American leadership” looks like.
Apart from wasting taxpayer money, this is building infrastructure that, unless Israel finishes off Hamas, will fall into the hands of terrorists.
Also, it will take 60 days to build (at least), by which time Israel should have finished pounding Hamas into a thin paste. It’s stupid piled on top of stupid.
I haven’t paid much attention to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s independent presidential run because I doubt it’s going to be on enough state ballots to even play a spoiler role. But the idea that he’s thinking of picking NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers as his running mate seems extra stupid. Yes, he’s won a Super Bowl and is a four-time MVP, is 40 years old (and thus constitutionally eligible to serve, but what the hell does an NFL quarterback know about running the country? Also, since Rodgers is under contract to the Jets, won’t having to play NFL football preclude him from actively running as VP pick?
Crazy white boy Shuan King is now a Muslim.
Breaking: BLM hoaxer Shaun King and his wife have converted to Islam. King identifies as black and previously identified as a Christian pastor. He regularly uses his large social media platform to threaten people.
“Captain Marvel 3, Ant Man 4, Eternals 2All Cancelled.” Second time to break this out this week:
Related: Just about all of the $71 billion Disney spent to acquire Fox was essentially wasted. They got into a bidding war, and then “they don’t use the catalog that Fox has that they were given.”
In the middle of trial, New York prosecutors abruptly dropped their case Wednesday against three collectibles experts who had been accused of scheming to hang onto and peddle the pages, which Eagles co-founder Don Henley maintained were stolen, private artifacts of the band’s creative process.
In explaining the stunning turnabout, prosecutors agreed that defense lawyers had essentially been blindsided by 6,000 pages of communications involving Henley and his attorneys and associates. Prosecutors and the defense got the material only in the past few days, after Henley and his lawyers apparently made a late-in-the-game decision to waive their attorney-client privilege shielding legal discussions.
In waving attorney-client privilege, it looks like Henley made himself a prisoner of his own device…
Congratulations on surviving the first 1/6th of 2024! The Big Guy is exactly who we knew he was all along, Houston police screw up, some big crime stories, Wayne LaPierre is found guilty, and the world’s saddest Oompa Loompa. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
“Remember when Joe Biden told the American people that his son didn’t make money in China?” asked Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) in a video posted to X. ““Well, not only did he lie about his son Hunter making money in China, but it also turns out that $40,000 in laundered China money landed in Joe Biden’s bank account in the form of a personal check.”
Today, a U.S. District Court issued its final judgment in Texas v. Garland, which was a challenge to the U.S. House’s proxy voting rule under the Quorum Clause of the Constitution. In its final judgment, the Court concluded that U.S. House members must be physically present for their vote to comply with the Constitution’s Quorum Clause. Attorneys from the Texas Public Policy Foundation argued the merits at trial in January of this year.
The lawsuit was originally filed with the State of Texas in response to Congress’ unlawful passage of the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill in December 2022. The U.S. Constitution requires a quorum, or a majority, of House members to be physically present for the U.S. House of Representatives to conduct business. As less than half of the members were present when the legislation was passed, with the rest voting by proxy, this legislation never should have passed, and the president should not have signed it.
“This meticulous, 120-page opinion was written after a full trial on the merits,” said TPPF senior attorney Matt Miller. “The Court correctly concluded that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 violated the Quorum Clause of the U.S. Constitution because a majority of House members was not physically present when the $1.7 trillion spending bill was passed. Proxy voting is unconstitutional.”
This basically says that every bit of that $1.7 trillion spending was unconstitutional, along with any laws, etc. passed in that omnibus. Just how do you back out all that money that’s been spent, assuming this is upheld?
Record meth bust in Eagle Pass. “The U.S. Customs and Border Protections (CBP) have seized six and a half tons of methamphetamine, over 13,000 pounds, at the Eagle Pass Port of Entry, making it the largest ever seizure in a single enforcement action.”
Mitch McConnell announced on Wednesday that he will step down as the Senate Republican leader in November, ending his tenure as the longest-serving Senate leader in history.
“This will be my last term as Republican Leader of the Senate,” the 82-year-old veteran of the chamber said to his colleagues on the Senate floor. “I’m not going anywhere… It’s time for the next generation of leadership.”
He’ll leave the senate when his term ends in 2027. You can condemn him as the ultimate swamp creature, or praise him for his effectiveness at things like getting Trump’s Supreme Court picks confirmed. It’s two sides of the same coin. I’m not sure he was as effective as Trent Lott or Howard Baker.
Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner called it a “dark day” at a press conference for the Houston Police Department, announcing that 4,107 adult sexual assault cases were wrongly closed without investigation.
A case management code “suspended for lack of personnel” was used, which led to closing the cases without actually investigating them.
Finner said he was first made aware the code even existed in 2021 and instructed HPD’s special victims division to stop using the code; however, he found out on February 7, 2024 that it continued. HPD first began using the code in 2016.
He said he immediately ordered a review of all cases suspended using this code dating back to 2016, which will take at least 30 days to complete. While the number of cases they have today is 4,017, he says it is “fluid and subject to change.”
60 Minutes gets to enjoy some of that vibrant Muslim diversity in Sweden to the sides of their faces.
60 Minutes goes to Sweden to make a heart warming special about diversity, but see a different situation, then this happens. pic.twitter.com/oUd2ZuJ0RV
“After five days of deliberations, a jury in New York on Friday held the National Rifle Association liable for financial mismanagement and found that Wayne LaPierre, the group’s former CEO, corruptly ran the nation’s most prominent gun rights group. The jury determined that LaPierre’s violation of his duties cost the NRA $5,400,000, though he already repaid roughly $1.5 million to the organization.” Here’s the thing: While they prosecution was unquestionably politically motivated, LaPierre did run a crooked ship. In the long run, forcing Wayne and his corrupt cronies from office has done the NRA a huge favor.
Argentine President Javier Milei just ended his country’s budget deficit in nine weeks. If Trump and the Republicans manage to control both houses of congress next year, there’s no reason they can’t balance the budget…assuming they have the will.
“Austin Fire Department Chaplain Dismissed for Comments on Transgender Athletes Sues for Free Speech Violation. A chaplain for the Austin Fire Department was dismissed from his position after expressing beliefs on his personal blog about protecting women’s sports.”
After a volunteer chaplain of the Austin Fire Department (AFD) was fired for posting on his personal blog that men and women are biologically different and should not compete against each other in sports, a lawsuit was filed in an effort to protect his rights to free speech and religious freedom.
The Alliance Defending Freedom said in a press release that it filed a motion Tuesday on behalf of Dr. Andrew Fox, who served in a voluntary capacity as chaplain for AFD before he was dismissed in 2021.
Unlike APD, AFD public and union leadership has been infected by social justice. Dr. Fox appears to have a very strong case on viewpoint discrimination grounds.
White TV host tries to race-bait Jerry Seinfeld for hosting “mostly” white male comedians on his show. It doesn’t go well for him.
“Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a bipartisan bill into law authorizing the release of grand jury transcripts from an investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. The new legislation, signed by the Florida governor on Thursday, will allow a public release of the jury’s transcripts from the 2006 probe into Epstein’s abuse of underage girls. The new measure goes into effect July 1.”
Weird Austin crime story: “Prominent local businessman arrested in Austin, accused of arson.”
A prominent Austin businessman and founder of Continental Automotive Group, or CAG, was arrested Thursday on charges of Felony Arson and a State Jail Felony offense of Burglary.
Dorsey Bryan Hardeman, 75, is accused of starting a fire at a downtown Austin building on Sunday, according to an arrest affidavit.
According to Travis County court records, Trey Collins with the Minton, Bassett, Flores & Carsey firm has been retained as the attorney representing Hardeman. Sam Bassett told KXAN the office has just begun its work and “it is premature to comment. However, we will provide Mr. Hardeman an appropriate and vigorous defense.”
The affidavit said the Austin Fire Department responded to a building fire at the former Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop on 400 Nueces St. on Feb. 25.
Once the fire was contained, fire investigators determined the incident to be incendiary and found metal shavings on the ground below the door suggesting the door lock had been drilled out, records state.
The affidavit states fire investigators watched video surveillance from the building, which showed an older man entering the building with a red container consistent with a plastic gas tank.
Multiple cameras inside the building show a man pouring liquid from the red container and dropping multiple matches on the ground, the affidavit said.
Records show the man arrived at the location in a white 4-door Mercedez SUV.
Investigators interviewed the owner of Mellow Johnny’s Bike Shop who told AFD Hardeman was the owner of the property next door and had previously asked about purchasing the property at 400 Nueces St.
This is not what people refer to as “the perfect crime.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Remember Morgan Spurlock’s Supersize Me? It turns out McDonalds didn’t destroy his liver, a decade of alcoholism did.
On Wednesday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson shut down the $95 billion foreign aid package recently passed by the Senate.
Johnson remained steadfast in his, and most of his party’s, belief that no bill that doesn’t include funding to solve the crisis at the southern border should be considered by the House.
“The Republican-led House will not be jammed or forced into passing a foreign aid bill that was opposed by most Republican senators and does nothing to secure our own border,” he said. “It’s time for Washington to start showing some love for Americans.”
“On Valentine’s Day, it’s a good day to point this out,” he continued. “We need to listen to the American people and their needs and take action, and that’s why House leadership will continue to govern with Americans’ interests at heart.”
Democrats had been trying to gin up support for a discharge petition, which would have allowed them to bypass Johnson and force a vote, however progressives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, said they would not sign on, citing the bill’s funding for Israel.
The foreign aid package, which dedicates funding to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, passed with a 70-29 vote as 22 Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues to side in favor of the bill.
Johnson made it clear even before the votes had been tallied that he had no intention of letting the bill enter his chamber.
While I’m not opposed to Ukraine aid in general, clearly the border is a far more pressing concern, but the Biden Administrations seems to want to throw open the borders at all costs. They need to pay the price for that decision, including no foreign aid being passed. Indeed, there’s a strong case to be made that with the towering Biden deficits and giant mountain of national debt, no foreign aid should be authorized until the budget is balanced. We also seem to get a very poor return for our foreign aid dollar. The Marshall Plan was over three-quarters of a century ago, and the Cold War ended over three decades ago.
Moreover, Speaker Johnson’s position (controlling borders is far more important than shipping billions in foreign aid abroad) is one that’s extraordinarily popular with American voters from all walks of life. Make the globalist foreign policy establishment suffer for the Biden Administration’s illegal refusal to enforce border control laws, no matter how hard the lefty MSM rages.
Foreign aid is a luxury. Protecting the border is an enumerated responsibility of the federal government.
Biden family corruption tops this week’s LinkSwarm (with a lot of links to go through), Juicy heads back to jail, and the Houthi’s tug on Superman’s cape.
A corporation owned and controlled by Hunter Biden made several direct monthly payments to President Biden beginning in 2018, according to bank records released by the House Oversight Committee on Monday.
The subpoenaed bank records obtained by National Review reveal Owasco PC established a monthly payment of $1,380 to President Biden beginning in September 2018. The committee says the payments establish a direct benefit Biden received from his family’s foreign business dealings, despite Biden’s claims that he has never benefitted from or been involved in his son’s ventures.
“This wasn’t a payment from Hunter Biden’s personal account but an account for his corporation that received payments from China and other shady corners of the world,” House Oversight chairman James Comer says in a new video detailing the findings. “At this moment, Hunter Biden is under an investigation by the Department of Justice for using Owasco PC for tax evasion and other serious crimes.”
Comer says the payments “are part of a pattern revealing Joe Biden knew about, participated in, and benefited from his family’s influence peddling schemes.”
“As the Bidens received millions from foreign nationals and companies in China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and Kazakhstan, Joe Biden dined with his family’s foreign associates, spoke to them by speakerphone, had coffee, attended meetings, and ultimately received payments that were funded by his family’s business dealings,” the committee added in a press release.
It was unclear based on the bank records how many monthly payments were made, but a source familiar with the committee’s probe said investigators had discovered at least three payments.
Last week, the committee released an email from a bank money-laundering investigator who expressed serious concerns about a transfer of funds from China that ultimately trickled down to President Biden in the form of a $40,000 check from his brother, James Biden.
Biden received a $40,000 personal check from an account shared by his brother, James Biden, and sister-in-law, Sara Biden, in September 2017 — money that was marked as a “loan repayment.” The alleged repayment was sent after funds were filtered from Northern International Capital, a Chinese company affiliated with the Chinese energy firm CEFC, through several accounts related to Hunter Biden and eventually down to the personal account shared by James and Sara Biden.
Northern International Capital sent $5 million to Hudson West III, a joint venture established by Hunter Biden and CEFC associate Gongwen Dong on August 8.
On the same day, Hudson West III then sent $400,000 to Owasco, P.C., an entity owned and controlled by Hunter Biden. Six days later, Hunter Biden wired $150,000 to Lion Hall Group, a company owned by James and Sara Biden. Sara Biden withdrew $50,000 in cash from Lion Hall Group on August 28 and then deposited the funds into her and her husband’s personal checking account later that day.
On September 3, 2017, Sara Biden wrote a check to Joe Biden for $40,000.
An unidentified bank investigator sent an email on June 26, 2018 to colleagues raising concerns about money sent from Hudson West III to Owasco P.C. The email said the $5 million in funds sent from Northern International Capital to Hudson West III were primarily used to fund 16 wire transfers totaling more than $2.9 million to Owasco PC. The wires were labeled as management fees and reimbursements.
Joe Biden used several email aliases to regularly correspond with Hunter Biden’s business partner in recent years, including while he was serving as vice president, a GOP-controlled House committee leading the Republican impeachment inquiry revealed Tuesday.
IRS whistleblowers Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley provided the eleven-page log of emails ahead of a closed-door hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday. The document includes metadata associated with emails sent to and from Joe Biden’s alias email addresses from 2010 to 2019, though it does not include the content of those emails.
In total, Joe Biden exchanged 327 emails with Hunter Biden’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, the founding partner and managing director of Hunter’s defunct Rosemont Seneca Partners investment firm. Fifty-four of those emails were sent directly to Schwerin, while the rest included other parties. Out of the 327 emails logged in the document, 291 were sent during Joe Biden’s Vice Presidency. Joe Biden’s email aliases included “robinware456,” “JRBware” and “RobertLPeters.”
“Through months of testifying for hours and producing hundreds of pages of documentation, and just as many months of baseless attacks against them, their story has remained the same and their credibility intact. The same cannot be said for President Biden,” committee chairman Jason Smith (R., Mo.) said in a statement.
“So far, our witnesses have produced over eleven-hundred pages of evidence, sat for 14 hours of closed-door testimony with counsel from the majority and minority on this committee, testified publicly before the Oversight Committee, and today, have provided us with new evidence.”
Smith also emphasized that much of the email correspondence between Joe Biden and Schwerin occurred around the then-vice president’s June 2014 trip to Ukraine.
Hunter Biden received a whopping $4.9 million from Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris in a three-year period, according to an IRS agent who investigated the president’s son for alleged tax evasion.
The revelation signifies a substantial increase in the known amount that Hunter, 53, got from his so-called “sugar brother” after the men reportedly met for the first time at a December 2019 campaign fundraiser.
IRS agent Joseph Ziegler shared the jaw-dropping figure and additional documentation Tuesday with the House Ways and Means Committee in a follow-up appearance as House Republicans near an expected vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry into President Biden for his alleged role in his family’s foreign dealings.
Prior reporting indicated Morris paid about $2 million in tax debts for Hunter and purchased some of his novice artworks.
Morris’ motives for helping the first son financially and the authenticity of their friendship have been debated by Republicans.
As part of his Tuesday testimony, Ziegler provided legislators an email showing that as early as Feb. 7, 2020 — two months after they met — Morris was contacting accountants on Hunter’s behalf and warning them to work quickly to avoid “considerable risk personally and politically.”
Ziegler, who investigated Hunter’s taxes for five years before he was removed from the case this year, said the first son’s income from Morris — at least some of it deemed loans — resembled Hunter’s practice of trying to avoid paying taxes on other income by describing it as loans.
And after the hundreds of stories of Hunter Biden’s corruption, and his key role in funneling foreign money into his father’s hands, Hunter has finally been indicted on nine criminal counts.
An American warship and several commercial ships faced attacks in the Red Sea on Sunday, the Pentagon said.
“We’re aware of reports regarding attacks on the USS Carney and commercial vessels in the Red Sea and will provide information as it becomes available,” the Pentagon said.
A U.S. official told the Associated Press the attack began around 10 a.m. in Sanaa, Yemen, and lasted five hours.
Officials did not say where the attacks may have come from.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have launched several attacks in the Red Sea in recent weeks and has launched drones and missiles toward Israel since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October.
Texas is suing the Biden Administration yet again, this time over imposing censorship.
The Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG) filed a joint lawsuit, along with co-plaintiff media outlets The Daily Wire and The Federalist, against the U.S. Department of State, alleging the federal government both directly and indirectly violated the First Amendment rights of certain online news outlets by placing them on a censorship “blacklist.”
According to the OAG, the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, alleges an office within the state department known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC) was used to “limit the reach and business viability of domestic news organizations by funding censorship technology and private censorship enterprises.”
The stated purpose of the GEC is to lead the federal government’s effort to “counter foreign state and non-state propaganda” and disinformation efforts that pose a risk to the United States or influence the government’s policies.
However, the plaintiffs argue the GEC was weaponized to “violate the First Amendment and suppress Americans’ constitutionally-protected speech.”
In short, the lawsuit describes how the government created multiple censorship programs that worked to de-platform, shadowban, discredit, and demonize certain American media outlets.
It argues that some of these mechanisms were not just surveillance tools for the government to monitor and identify potential propaganda and disinformation, but rather characterized the technology that had been developed as “tools of warfare” used to shape opinions and perceptions that had been “misappropriated and misdirected to be used at home against domestic political opponents and members of the American press with viewpoints conflicting with federal officials.”
“Media Plaintiffs each face blacklisting, reduced advertising revenue, reduced potential growth, reputational damage, economic cancellation, reduced circulation of reporting and speech, and social media censorship — all as a direct result of Defendants’ unlawful conduct,” the lawsuit states.
“I am proud to lead the fight to save Americans’ precious constitutional rights from Joe Biden’s tyrannical federal government,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a news release announcing the lawsuit.
“The State Department’s mission to obliterate the First Amendment is completely un-American. This agency will not get away with their illegal campaign to silence citizens and publications they disagree with.”
“Those government-funded, government-promoted censorship technologies and enterprises targeted conservative media outlets, including The Daily Wire,” Ben Shapiro said in a video statement released regarding the lawsuit. Shapiro is the editor emeritus of The Daily Wire.
“Their goal is to paint us as unreliable and therefore to push advertisers away from advertising on programs like this one, websites like The Daily Wire, websites like The Federalist, that is an ongoing problem that is being pushed by the state department,” he said.
Back to jail for Juicy. Nate the Lawyer offers a good overview of the twists and turns of the case. I had forgotten that he had paid his “attackers” with a personal check…
The F-117 Nighthawk was retired in 2008. Or was it?
the Belarus Red Cross Society is suspended from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The suspension is the result of noncompliance by the Belarus Red Cross with the request for the dismissal of Mr. Dimitry Shevtsov, Secretary General of the National Society. This follows the decision of the IFRC’s Governing Board of 3 October 2023 relating to the investigation into the allegations against Belarus Red Cross Secretary General for his statements, including on nuclear weapons and on the movement of children to Belarus, and his visit to Luhansk and Donetsk.
The suspension means that the Belarus Red Cross loses its rights as a member of the IFRC. Any new funding to the Belarus Red Cross will also be suspended.
“Governor Greg Abbott is keeping the endorsements rolling, announcing his support for Marc LaHood for Texas House. LaHood, an attorney from San Antonio, is challenging State Rep. Steve Allison (R–San Antonio), who was elected to the House in 2018 to replace retiring House Speaker Joe Straus. Since then, Allison has consistently had one of the most liberal voting records among his Republican colleagues.”
The Walt Disney Co. effectively controlled the local government around the site of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, for decades in what an extensive review by the state government calls “the most egregious exhibition of corporate cronyism in modern American history.”
After Disney bought the land that would become its massive amusement park and resort, it received permission from the Florida Legislature and governor in 1967 to create a local government, the Reedy Creek Improvement District.
From that time until Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill Feb. 27 abolishing the Reedy Creek district, Disney heavily influenced the local government to its advantage, according to a new report Monday from the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District.
The legislation signed into law by DeSantis, a Republican, transformed the Reedy Creek district into the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, which aims to root out what critics see as Disney’s corrupt hold over the local government.
In the report, a copy of which was provided early to The Daily Signal, the new Central Florida Tourism Oversight District claims that “Disney not just controlled the Reedy Creek Improvement District, but did so by effectively purchasing loyalty.”
Although the Reedy Creek district was a separate entity from the Walt Disney Co., the district treated its employees as if they were Disney employees, sometimes referred to as “cast members,” and awarded them lavish perks unavailable to the general public.
The new Florida government report used the expertise of George Mason University Professor Donald J. Kochan in governance; William Jennings at Delta Consulting Group in accounting; the consulting firm Kimley-Horn for engineering; and Public Resources Advisory Group Managing Director Wendell Gaertner for public finance.
The report notes: “Disney effectively bribed RCID employees (and retirees, members of the [RCID] Board of Supervisors, and vendor VIPs) by showering them with company benefits and perks: millions of dollars’ worth of annual passes to theme parks worldwide, 40% discounts on cruises, free transferable single-use tickets during the holiday season, steep discount on merchandise, marked discounts on food and beverage, and access to non-public shopping reserved for Disney cast members (where merchandise was greatly discounted and items were made available that were otherwise not available for public purchase).”
I’ve long documented the failures of California’s still unbuilt high speed rail, and now a video from Simon Whistler (yeah, him) covers a similar doomed British high speed rail project:
“Even in a country used to paying absurd prices for everything from houses to a pint of beer, it was still a pretty eye-watering figure. After initially being projected to cost under £40 billion in 2012, Britain’s second high-speed rail project, HS2, was recently calculated to be facing a price tag closer to £100 billion.”
“Just the first phase alone the 34 miles connecting London and Birmingham is in danger of becoming one of the most expensive railways ever built.”
It was originally supposed to pay for itself by offering high speed connections between London and three English industrial cities in the north: Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield. But ballooning costs forced the cancellation of those two line extensions.
“All rationale for HS2 vanished, leaving the UK with a multi-billion pound bill just to slightly reduce travel time between London and Birmingham.”
HS1 was the 62 mile high speed rail line from London to the channel tunnel. It only cost three times the estimated price.
One reason it was considered a success: “It had added significant extra capacity to commuter lines running into London from Kent, as much as 40% extra in peak times.”
In the dying days Gordon Brown’s Labor government in 2010, Transport Secretary and rail freak Lord Adonis published a white paper outlining his Utopian high speed rail vision for Britain. Unfortunately, incoming conservative George Osborne had a soft spot for flashy infrastructure projects.
“Neither Adonis nor Osborne nor anybody else could have envisaged a budget that would soon balloon wildly out of control.” Actually, I suspect anyone familiar with the many failures of high speed rail projects in the U.S. could indeed have envisaged it.
By 2015 it was up to £55 billion.
By 2019 it was £71 billion, or over £22,000 for every UK household.
After 2020 and Flu Manchu, it was over £100 billion, and PM Rishi Sunak pulled the plug on everything but the London to Birmingham stretch, which was still going to cost £53 billion, or £396 million per mile.
“The fast train from Euston Station to Birmingham New Street takes around 1 hour and 40 minutes. All H2 will do will shave 25 to 35 minutes off that.”
All infrastructure projects in the UK cost more than their equivalents in continental Europe. “The insane costs associated with planning applications in the UK, something that you could see in the proposed London Themes Crossing, which recently spent £267 million just on planning paperwork.”
There’s a ton of NIMBYism along the route, forcing them to spend billions building rail tunnels despite it being perfectly feasible to build it overland.
Between London and Birmingham lies the sort of gentile English landscape that people who’ve never visited the UK believe the whole country looks like, a green swath of rolling hills, country lanes and posh blokes wearing tweed. Unfortunately, it turns out that the sort of people who live in this landscape hate the idea of London politicians plonking a fancy new train line right in the middle of it.
“Some countries like Japan can do tunneling at a reasonable cost. The UK is not among that group.”
Then there’s the well-paid army of white collar consultants, which will be familiar to any observer of California’s high speed rail project. “Among them were 40 employees paid more than £150,000 a year, and chief executives with higher salaries than any other public official in Britain.” Nice work if you can get it.
“In July of 20123 the government’s own infrastructure watchdog branded HS2 as unachievable saying it could not be delivered in its current form.”
The kicker: HS2 may never make it to central London, as building there is too expensive. “Rather than terminating at Euston Station in central London, HS2 would now end at Old Oak Common,” a suburban station, where they’re expected to catch local connections. “The new line will cost of tens of billions get you from Birmingham to central London less quickly than you can do it at the moment.”
But they’ve already spent £40 million for two top-of-the-line boring machines from Germany to dig the Old Oak Common to Euston segment. Current plans are to bury them in hope they might be used later.
“Hearing about stuff like this, it is tempting to wonder if, just maybe, the UK shouldn’t have listened to the results of the 2006 independent review into high speed rail written by Rod Edington before HS1 was even finished it concluded that highspeed rail simply isn’t worth it in Britain.”
“The money would be better spent on less sexy improvements, like line electrification and improving local bus services.”
And we all know why they’d never go that route: There simply aren’t enough opportunities for bureaucratic empire building and graft…
Brandon Herrera, a YouTube influencer with a focus on firearms, has announced that he is challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales for Texas’ congressional district 23 seat.
Herrera, who has over 2 million YouTube subscribers, had been hinting towards a congressional run for weeks on his YouTube channel. He previously made an appearance at a congressional hearing earlier this year after being invited by U.S. Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) to testify against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.
Congressional District 23 is a rural, majority-Hispanic area that encompasses western San Antonio and contains a large span of the Texas-Mexico border—including Uvalde, Eagle Pass, and El Paso county.
Herrera first announced his run at the Young Americans for Liberty conference and then in a YouTube video.
“Several Republicans who swore to defend gun rights, to protect borders, just in general, putting the rights and interests of the American people above their own, turn their back on these values,” Herrera said.
“There can be no more incumbent politicians who vote time and time again against the interests of the American people without fear of losing their positions,” he continued.
Herrera calls himself a “Second Amendment absolutist” and has repeatedly criticized Gonzales for being the sole Texas Republican member of the U.S. House to vote for the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a Biden-backed law meant to enact stricter background checks for gun purchases.
Here’s his campaign announcement (which looks like it was filmed in a hotel room):
“I have a deep love for the values that this country was founded on, the ideas of freedom of self-governance. You see, America was never supposed to be the country that gave you everything you always wanted. It was simply a place that gave you the freedom and the opportunity to chase those things for yourself to pursue happiness to build great things.”
“I’m working with groups like The Firearms Policy Coalition, National Association for Gun Rights, and Gun Owners of America.” Notice who’s missing?
“Tony Gonzalez claimed to be in favor of gun rights, but he voted in favor of Biden’s post-Uvalde gun control and claims he would do it again.”
And here he is at Young Americans for Liberty:
“ATF is out of control.”
“They are a regulatory body that does not have the Constitutional authority to write the law, yet they write the law. They’re banning FRTs [forced reset triggers], they’re banning arm braces, they’re banning bump stocks. All things, I will remind you, comply to the letter of the law and were actually previously approved by the ATF for sale.”
“The American experiment was about having the freedom to be who you want to be, to live how you want to live to do what you want to do. Unless that means you want to fuck kids. That’s that’s when the wood chipper gets hungry.”
Here’s his website. His six highlighted issues (gun rights, immigration, budget deficits, censorship, leftwing control of education and abortion) are all solidly conservative, but he might want to throw up paragraphs about the lousy Biden economy and protecting the oil and gas industry (TX-23 includes big chunks of Eagle Ford and Permian Basin fields).
Herrera is one of the biggest gun bloggers in Texas, but sometimes it’s difficult to translate “internet famous” into electoral success. (In 2015, Fark’s Drew Curtis drew a paltry 3.7% of the vote as an independent in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race.)
On the other hand, Second Amendment rights are a hot-button issue for Texas Republican voters, and Herrera has just under 3 million subscribers on YouTube. If 1/10th of them sent him $5 each, his campaign would have enough money to run a competative race.
TX-23 used to be a full-blown swing district, with Will Hurd and Gonzalez winning by narrow margins, but it’s gotten redder thanks to redistricting and a Hispanic swing toward the GOP thanks to Biden’s feckless border policies. Swing districts tend to produce squishy congressmen like Hurd and Gonzalez.
Pretty much nothing about Herrera makes me think he’d be squishy.
Well, the Air Force is back to wanting to kill the A-10, and this time they may succeed.
“The US Air Force is charging ahead with plans to retire the old A-10 Warthog attack jet within the next five years, but there’s only one problem: there’s no dedicated close air support platform to replace it.”
“In the 2023 version of the National Defense Authorization Act, congress approved the Air Force requests to begin divestment of the current A-10 fleet, citing the aircraft is too old, too slow and too expensive to maintain.”
“The Air Force seems to be getting its way this time, with a set timetable to replace the 54 A-10s from Moody Air Force base with F-35a by 2028, and plans to retire the rest of the fleet soon to come.” As Jerry Pournelle once said, “USAF will always retire hundreds of Warthog to buy another F-35. Always, so long as it exists. And it will never give up a mission.” The F-35 is certainly a more modern, capable and flexible aircraft than the A-10, but it also costs about $79 million each, which makes me think that the Air Force is going to be very leery about letting it be used for close air support. By contrast, the lifetime cost of the A-10 is about $14 million per plane.
Back when the A-10 was first proposed, opponents argued that the role of close support could be handled by the F4 Phantom II, which brings home just how old the A-10 is, since the Phantom was retired from combat use in 1996.
Back when the GAU-8 30mm Gatling gun was developed, guided missile technology was new and finicky tech. That’s no longer the case. “When a laser-guided Maverick can hit a tank more accurately from 22km away, the 1.2 km range of the G8 looks a lot less impressive.”
The A-10 is easy to fly but slow, with a max speed of 439MPH.
Thick titanium armor provides solid protection to proximity explosions, less to direct hits. (Remember, in 2003 an A-10 managed to make it back to base even though it was missing most of a wing.)
The A-10 kicked ass in Desert Storm. “Final tally for the A10 in the first Gulf War was an impressive 987 tanks and 1,355 combat vehicles for only 6 planes lost. Another 14 A-10s were damaged but able to fly back to base, suggesting that the A-10 survivability was keeping pilots alive in that conflict.” Caveats: A lot of those kills were with Maverick missiles, and Desert Storm was 32 years ago.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, the A-10 was praised for how well it performed close air support, but also criticized for friendly fire and civilian casualties.
“Emphasis on keeping the A-10 and rugged and cheap delayed major upgrades to the plane sensor and fire control systems until the mid-2000s. The $2.2 billion A-10C upgrade program finally updated the
Warthog’s cockpit from the 1970s era tech it had first flown with.”
“The Warthog is almost 50 years old at this point, meaning that aircraft are having to undergo more and more maintenance each year. These costs are adding up, to the point where newer platforms are becoming cheaper to operate per flight hour.”
As new technology enables new means of war-fighting, the Air Force appears to have finally convinced congress that other aircraft can do the same job but better. A big part of the argument for retiring the A-10 is a mirror of the original survivability argument from the 1960s: There doesn’t seem to be much room for a big aircraft that flies low and slow in a near-peer conflict, and likely hasn’t been for some time the A-10 has been effective as long as it has thanks to the low intensity of counterinsurgency warfare that U.S. has been fighting for 20 years. Besides a few man-portable launchers, the Taliban and ISIS didn’t have much air defense that could threaten the A-10, and so the Warthog thrived in the asymmetric warfare conditions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Experts say that won’t be the case against a potential enemy like China.
“The gun’s tank busting abilities aren’t sufficient against modern tank armor. The 30 mm API rounds used by the cannon can penetrate around 69mm of steel armor at 500 meters, but modern Russian tanks like T72-B3 have 80mm or more on the hull and sides and way more protection on the front.”
As much as I hate to admit it, these arguments are probably correct. The Russo-Ukrainian War has shown that the threat environment is deadlier than ever, with Russia’s air force unable to achieve air superiority over Ukraine, and Russia has reportedly limited sorties to it’s own airspace due to Ukrainian air defenses. Ukraine has shot down at least 30 Russian Su-25s, the Soviet close air support plane most broadly comparable in role and age to the A-10, which is more than they’ve shot down of any other aircraft type. And the Su-25 is over 100 MPH faster than the A-10.
Also the rise in combat drone number, capability and variety means that the A-10’s close air support role is increasingly being taken over by cheaper, more flexible unmanned vehicles. A-10s would have been perfect for taking out those long convoys strung out on the road to Kiev, but a small swarm of drones with multiple missiles could have done the same thing if they were available, probably at lower cost and without losing pilots. (Some will point to the B-52 as example of older aircraft that are still useful on the modern battlefield, but their mission (high altitude and/or far away using standoff missiles) is the exact opposite of the A-10’s close air support mission.)
Technology marches on, and there’s no reason you couldn’t have drones half the size and one-tenth the cost of an A-10 armed with 10-12 smart missiles replacing most of the A-10’s mission capabilities. Whether the Air Force will let that happen is another question, as the Sky Warden shows the Air Force never wants to give up a mission, but drones have proven too valuable in Ukraine to shove that genie back inside the bottle.
